


Melora's Blade

by cincoflex



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Captain America: The Winter Soldier Spoilers, Gen, POV Original Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-23
Updated: 2014-12-30
Packaged: 2018-02-10 01:20:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 22
Words: 55,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2005548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cincoflex/pseuds/cincoflex
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the fall of Hydra, the Winter Soldier tries to re-claim his identity, but old enemies and new relationships complicate matters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Just my AU take on what might happen after CA:TWS.

My name is Melora Zherdev and I thought my Uncle Mischa was a terrorist.

Pretty dramatic, but honestly, he’d gotten a lot more cynical and unpleasant the last few years, and I’m not sure if it’s because he was getting older, or if he really couldn’t stand politics anymore. The man was always grumbling about bombings and government agencies and of course the Cold War. Sometimes I think he meant the observations he made, and sometimes I wonder if it was all an act; he could be pretty cagey about things at times. Uncle Mischa still went to work every day at the jewelry store to repair watches, even though he could have retired years ago. Frankly I’m glad he got out of the house on a regular basis because now that was just him and me we got on each other’s nerves.

He was the last relative I had, though, and he let me live with him here nearly rent-free, so I wasn’t going to gripe too much about it. My commute wasn't too bad, and even though Uncle Mischa wouldn’t let me upgrade any of the plumbing and heating, we managed. We were that house at the end of the cul de sac near the bridge . . . the only one left on the block that wasn’t foreclosed and that was because Uncle bought it waaay back in the early Fifties so he owned the deed outright. He and my Aunt ‘Milla had lived here for nearly fifty years, which wasn’t too bad for first generation immigrants.

It was just him and me now, though, and it was . . . complicated. He didn’t really want me here, but he was getting too frail to stay on his own, and absolutely _refused_ to move. At the same time, he also wouldn’t let me do anything to make access easier for him. I couldn’t hire anybody to put in easy risers, or re-landscape the walkway and heaven forbid I look at the furnace or even go _into_ the basement. It wasn’t as if I couldn’t pay for it, or at least cover most of it; I make pretty good money. I know for a fact that developers have been trying to buy out this last little neighborhood for years, and why my aunt and uncle didn’t take their offers stumped the hell out of me. Maybe in its day it was a nice view of the river, but now . . . not so much with the loom of bridge and the garbage that floats past.

Ugh.

Still, Uncle Mischa was family, and if there’s one thing my parents drilled into me, it was a sense of duty. That, and keeping up with my Russian. Dad was an accountant, and he’d probably still be around if he hadn’t had a three pack a day cigarette habit. Mom outlived him by about a decade, but she stepped into a crosswalk mid-town and was killed when a truck hit her three years ago. That left me with my Aunt and Uncle, who took me in and didn’t let me leave. 

For a while I didn’t mind; I was the only kid the four of them ever had and they spoiled me, always called me their secret charm; their special gift. Dad used to worry about me a lot, and always walked me to and from school, always reminded me not to talk to strangers, that sort of thing. When he died, mom and the other two doubled up on the warnings until I felt like every time I stepped out the door was a matter of life or death. 

I got rebellious for a few months in my teen years, and that only freaked them out. Over and over my mom would moan I’d be the death of her, and the guilt trip wore me down because under it all I knew they loved me and were trying to show me that. Pretty typical I guess, but sometimes I did have the feeling I was being watched. Once when I was nine, mom picked me up and told me we were going to spend the night in the city. I loved it, except for the part where she wouldn’t take me home to pack, and later when we couldn’t get back for a long time because some Ambassador had been shot and the roads were closed.

Still, My family were all good to me, and by the time Aunt ‘Milla didn’t make it through her chemotherapy, it came down to Uncle Mischa and me left here trying not to drive each other too crazy. It had been getting tougher though. I didn’t feel safe here, even though we had locks and floodlights. Uncle Mischa had a gun and I still had both mom and dad’s somewhere in the attic I think, not that I’d be much good with them. Dad only took me to the range once, and mom gave him hell about it for weeks, shouting at him that he was going to get me killed and that laying low was the most important thing.

Not crazy about guns, actually, but this close to the city they’re a fact of life. I’m much better at defending myself with my hands and feet, thanks to ten years of judo. My parents approved of that, and paid for it, so I’m grateful. Twice I’ve laid would-be muggers flat on their asses, and once I dealt with an overly-friendly fellow on the subway who thought it was his right to cop a feel during my commute home before I got a car. I may not be able to shoot very well, but I can handle anyone getting into my personal space.

That being said, I was feeling pretty spooked when I noticed that someone had been calling the house line and hanging up. Yeah, we still had a land-line—I know, I know, ancient technology but my uncle insisted. Anyway, hang-ups were creepy on our old phone because you didn’t have caller ID to screen them, and half the time Uncle Mischa didn’t even seem to realize the phone was ringing. The only people who called us anyway were Dad’s old accounting firm, Hardy Global, and sometimes Doctor Z’s office, and I was sort of glad they were still keeping tabs on us.

Anyway, I mentioned the phone calls to Uncle and he got agitated and started watching the news much more, insisting I get him both the national and international newspapers. I tried to humor him, but picking up copies of _Pravda_ isn’t easy these days, so I was late getting back. Most of the TV stations were covering the destruction out in DC, and everyone was tense about it, talking about exactly how the Triskelion went down and exactly who was responsible for it. I didn’t think Captain America was, but some of the channels had footage of him fighting soldiers and it was hard to figure out who they were.

Politics aren’t my strong point anyway.

I drove up into our cul de sac and something went off in my head; just a sense of unease. The two houses on either side of ours were still empty and locked up; both had security systems so there weren’t any squatters or meth houses here, but I still couldn’t shake the sense of unease. Uncle Mischa met me on the porch, waving his cane and looking totally furious.

 _“Go back to the city Melora! Right now!”_ He ordered me in Russian.

“What? Why?” I wanted to know. I mean Uncle could be gruff but I hadn’t gotten any indication that he wanted me gone or anything. We squabbled a bit, but nothing serious enough to warrant him throwing me out. Still, he looked deadly serious, glaring at me as I came towards him, papers under my arm.

_”Because I said so! It’s very important you do what I say right now!”_

That made me mad. I’d gone out of my way to get him his papers and here he was, ungrateful as hell about it. I stomped my way past him and into the house, throwing my armful of newsprint down on the table and snarling a little myself. “I’ve just spent an hour getting home and I’m not about to turn around and go back! Besides, why _should_ I? I know you own this house but I live here too!”

Then Uncle snapped back something about security and I had a good retort all lined up but when an arm slipped out of the shadows behind him and held a gun to his temple I shut up quick. The figure at my Uncle Mischa’s shoulder was in the shadows, but I got the impression of a business suit. I froze.

Uncle gave a little quiver. _”She knows nothing; let me send her away!”_

 _”She’s of the Bloodline. She stays,”_ the man replied, and his monotone put just that much more chill into me hearing it. I’m not brave, not at all, and I probably would have started crying if he’d turned the gun on me, but all I could do was stare like an animal in headlights. He pushed Uncle forward and when they came into the house I saw that the man with the gun looked like any one of a thousand men from the city—suit, tie, decent shoes, average height. Put him in a crowd outside any office building and he’d blend right in. 

He herded Uncle in and made a right towards the kitchen.  
“Good evening, Miss Zherdev. Please set your cell phone and keys on the table,” he told me. “Now.” 

“Who the hell are you?” I demanded as I slowly did what he asked.

“I’m the one in charge,” he replied, and smiled.

I hated him right then. He had me and my uncle hostage and I could tell he liked the feeling of power it gave him. From the look on Uncle’s face I could tell he sensed it too, but he held my gaze to keep me from doing anything stupid.

“Not helpful,” I muttered. “We don’t have any money, so if you’re looking to rob us you’ve wasted your time.”

It bothered me that he’d spoken Russian earlier.

“I’m not here for money, Miss Zherdev, as your uncle well knows.”

_”She’s innocent, Dobrov, innocent! Let her go!”_

“She’s hardly that now, is she?” The man—Dobrov I guess—said. “Perfect health, no diseases, and no infections despite living near a cesspool of humanity. It’s amazing how certain projects can thrive even in difficult environments. We may have need of her tonight, and if not, well, there is always the future.”

“Creeping me out,” I told him. To Uncle I added, _”I should have listened to you.”_

 _”NOW she agrees with me,”_ Uncle replied, but he managed a ghost of a smile and I felt better. 

“If you had run we would have found you,” Dobrov interrupted softly. “You are as important as Mischa here, believe me."

I heard footsteps on the porch and another figure came in, this one a woman. She was dressed for the city as well, but she had a knife instead of a gun; it disappeared up her sleeve like a magic trick.

“The perimeter is clear,” she announced. “If he’s coming in, we’ll be ready. Is this the donor?”

“What?” I didn’t like the sound of that as ALL, but Dobrov nodded.

“Yes. Confine her, please, while Mischa and I wait.”

“Confine—okay, really, what the hell is going on? Who’s coming, why am I a donor, what bloodline are you talk--” I had to stop because the woman had the knife back out and at my throat.

“Things will be explained on a need-to-know basis, and right now . . . you don’t need to know,” she murmured almost kindly. “We’re going to the basement.”

Uncle gave a little twitch, but Dobrov guided him to one of the kitchen chairs and made him sit. Uncle looked pale and I hoped his blood pressure wasn’t shooting up too high.

“Don’t hurt him,” I blurted.

Doborov nodded, almost politely. “I hope I don’t have to, Miss Zherdev. Keep in mind his continued good health is partially up to you.”

Not a lot of choice, and not a lot of room to fight, so I went with the woman, who put the knife along my back as we headed for the stairs. She was alert enough to keep me from trying anything and down we went, through the now unlocked door and into the basement.

I was expecting a damp, dreary place with maybe a single light bulb overhead, and filled with old boxes and the water heater . . . you know, a typical basement. Instead, it was . . . like an operating room. White tile, scary looking machinery. On the floor were dank canvas tarps that had probably been hiding all this stuff over the years. I tried to look around but the woman pushed me over to an old wooden chair and made me sit down. She ziptied my wrist to one of the water pipes going up the wall, and then went around clearing the tarps away and flicking on switches while I watched her.

“Are you with the NSA? FBI?” I asked, even though deep inside I was pretty sure she wasn’t.

She rolled her eyes. “They really _have_ kept you like a mushroom, haven’t they? You’re lucky you’re potentially useful, Zherdev. No, we’re not with Homeland Security or any other little jingoistic group you can think of. We’re bigger than that.”

I held my tongue, hoping she’d say more—she seemed like the type and sure enough, she did, shooting me a contemptuous little look. “Your relatives were members of HYDRA, and by extension, so are you, even if you don’t know it. Your blood type—O Negative—was carefully cultivated and augmented when you were a baby so that you would be a perfect living donor for one of our greatest assets. Your family was planted here on the off-chance you might have the chance to serve, and it looks like that time has come.”

“HYDRA? Like the mythical monster?”

“We have a few concepts in common,” the woman muttered, and pulled out a sealed box from under the stairs. She laid out a tray of what looked like medical tools, setting it all up with an efficiency that was starting to scare the crap out of me. When she was me watching, she waved one of the bigger syringes in my direction. “I hope you have the good sense not to struggle, Zherdev. Dobrov and I would prefer not to have to knock you out. At least, _I_ would prefer not to.”

I shot her a hateful look. “You’re not getting any of my blood.”

“Oh yes we are, if it’s needed. Your whole purpose in life is to be a donor, and that’s not limited to just _blood_ by the way,” she told me as she began wiping down her hands with antibacterial gel. 

Now the fear was really setting in, and I began to consider whether kicking, screaming and biting would help delay anything. I’m not brave, I’m really not, and everything this bitch was saying didn’t help matters. I was worried for Uncle too, and knew that nobody would find us for days, maybe even weeks if worst came to worst. I tensed up, looking towards the woman and getting ready to strike when I caught a flicker of movement from behind her.

The man moved faster than anyone I’d ever seen, even my judo teacher, and wrapped his left arm around her neck. She tried to twist but he tightened it and I watched her pass out after making a few smothered squeaky sounds. He let her slump to the floor and stepped around her, then looked at me and put a finger—a _metal finger_ —to his lips in a sign not to make a sound.

I didn’t. Believe me, I didn’t. He nodded slowly and looked up towards the stairs and while he did that I got a look at him under the lights. Light-framed but strong, clearly. He wore what looked like second-hand clothing and had his hair stuffed under a baseball cap—sort of homeless looking. I had no idea how he’d gotten in—he must have been here the whole time, and I think that terrified me most of all. Someone who had gotten past not only Uncle, but also past these two spies as well . . . yeah the neighborhood really _was_ getting dangerous now.

Still, he wasn’t making any threatening moves towards me, and certainly he didn’t look like he was going start waving syringes in my direction.

Footsteps overhead got louder, spooking us both. I watched him pull a tarp over the woman, hiding her for the moment, and then he slipped back out of sight behind the water heater in the corner. Since I didn’t want to give him away, I turned my head and looked at one of the machines. It had large dials, and a very Fifties appearance to it—retro as all hell, in fact. I swear the surface was enameled. The stairs creaked and I held my breath as out of the corner of my eye I noted both Uncle and the other man’s feet coming into view.

“Gloria, have you got . . .” the man began, herding Uncle Mischa down and looking into the basement. “Gloria?”

For a moment the three of us sort of looked at each other. It’s not a huge basement, but even so, there weren’t too many places out of the line of sight, and Dobrov looked suspicious. He started to speak, “Where’s Gl---” when the man surged out, caught Dobrov and twisted his grip free of Uncle before slamming him to the floor. It was a beautiful move, really, and I envied how smoothly he did it.

Dobrov gave a grunt and tried to shift, but the man planted a big grungy boot on his chest to keep him down.  
 _“Nyet,”_ The man said, and his voice was low and a little raspy. “Stay.”

 _”We are here to help you,”_ Dobrov shifted to Russian easily, and his tone was a lot more conciliatory than it had been with Uncle and me.

 _”Don’t believe him!”_ Uncle broke in. _”They need you more than ever now!_ ”

None of this was making a lot of sense to me, although I guessed that whoever the strange guy was, he seemed to be the one the two bad guys had been waiting for all along, and that this house—hell, MY house—was some sort of station or checkpoint or safe haven for him. It was a hell of a lot to take in, particularly after a full day of work and no food since lunch. I tried to catch Uncle’s eye. _”Are you all right?”_

 _”Shut up!”_ Dobrov snapped at me and Uncle, before looking up at the stranger again. _”Pay no attention to them; they’re useless expendables. Your mission is over; it is time to return!”_

The stranger looked at me and Uncle, then with a lot of hesitation took his foot off of Dobrov and stepped back to let him get up. Dobrov wasn’t happy but he kept his voice soothing. _”That’s better. Now let us help you stand down.”_

 _”No!”_ Uncle snapped, _”No more! For fifty years my family was waited and given up our chances at a real life, and for what? For this? For NOTHING! Hydra has done nothing for us! My brother, dead! My sister-in -law, dead! My ‘Milla, joy of my life, denied all treatment and dead!”_  
Then Uncle added, _"Fuck Hydra! THIS is what I give for Hydra!”_ and spat on the floor.

I blinked. Dobrov looked like someone had just goosed him with a live wire, but the stranger . . . oh the stranger . . . laughed.

It was rusty and slow, but it was a real laugh and it sounded especially creepy here in the basement. I could feel goosebumps and not in a good way either. 

Dobrov snarled and lunged for Uncle, hands around his throat. It didn’t take much; Uncle was thirty pounds lighter and sixty years older. I gasped, but the ziptie held me back as my uncle fell to the ground, his head at an unnatural angle. 

_”You Bastard!!”_ I shrieked, and said it again in English, with a lot more emphasis. “Oh you mother _fucker,_ I will rip your head off and use it for soccer practice! I will pull your balls up around your shoulders and skin your prick with a carrot peeler!”

Dobrov smacked me across the mouth for that, and my head rocked from the blow, but I was almost glad because I was already in pain. Sure I hadn’t gotten along with Uncle all the time but he was _family_. He was all I had left, and now I didn’t even have _him._ I teared up, but I was too mad to just cry, so I spit out some blood and was about to mouth off again when the stranger reached over and grabbed Dobrov’s shoulder, squeezing it.

Dobrov gasped.

“Stop,” the stranger ordered in a flat voice. “There’s no need.”

But Dobrov wasn’t quite ready to give up his authority, and he tried to give the stranger a reassuring smile. I noticed that he was slipping his hand into his pocket though, even as he spoke.

“He was an old fool and not worth anything. Now you need to let us examine you----” Dobrov pulled out a weird little device that apparently the stranger recognized, because he started to cringe a little. I was close enough that I lashed out a foot and hit Dobrov on the outside of his knee, and believe me I didn’t hold back against that bastard. He grunted and dropped the device, and this time his voice wasn’t nice at all. “You little stupid BITCH!”

He whirled and gave me another backhand across the face with the device and I felt the thing slice a gouge along the edge of my lower lip. Shit it _stung_ , and I cried out even as my lip started to spurt blood. Because I was sort of caught up in my own pain I didn’t catch what happened, but suddenly Dobrov wasn’t in front of me, and just when I tried to lift my head, I felt something grab my leg.

Gloria was awake and trying to get up. I looked at her blearily since I wasn’t focusing too well. She was staring at the stranger and I could see why: he had just gotten Dobrov in a bear hug annnnnd cracked his spine.

Shit. Shitshitshit! I couldn’t think, I couldn’t do anything but watch stupidly as blood dripped off my chin. Gloria didn’t seem to be in any hurry to get closer to the stranger, who dropped Dobrov and looked a little perplexed at what he’d done.

 _“You’re . . . confused,”_ she started in a sort of squeaky voice. I guess seeing your partner snapped like a dry breadstick puts the fear of God into you. _“I can help you, Winter Soldier.”_

For a moment he stood there, swaying a little bit under the hanging lights in the basement while I licked at the blood on my lip and watched him. It dawned on me that he was in fact righteously hot, and _that_ was such a stupid, useless thought that I laughed.

He must have heard it, because the stranger came out of his indecision and just stared at me and Gloria. “That’s . . . not my name,” he told us, and took a few steps our way. Gloria scrambled back, terrified, and was almost sitting in my lap when he hooked one of his metal fingers into the ziptie and ripped it off with a tug. I let my hand drop down but didn’t move while Gloria held hers up to push him back.

Her knife popped out, winking in the light.

 _“Stop! I order you to stop! Your mission is over; it’s time to return to the Motherland!”_ Gloria babbled. I could smell the acrid stink of her fear, even over my own blood, and I shifted her a bit. She squirmed, but the stranger grabbed her wrist, staring at her blade.

“No,” was all he said, and pushed her away, hard. She skittered across the basement, hit one of the machines, and then passed out again on the floor. I stood up, trying not to let the dizziness get to me, and looked at the stranger, sticking my chin out.

“Thanks,” I managed.

He looked around and seemed uncertain what to do for a few seconds. He started for the stairs, but I managed to slip in front of him, blocking his way. “Whoa, wait--so you’re just going to _leave_ me here?”

The stranger looked at me like an owl, big eyes, unblinking. It was unnerving as hell and it got my back up a little, so I went on. “Oh come _on,_ man! Bad enough that my u-uncle’s dead, but with two . . . agents or whatever here and all this blood and these weird machines . . . and I didn’t _do_ any of this but I’m damn sure nobody’s going to believe that! You can’t just ditch me with this mess and walk away like it’s all right! This is _America,_ buck-o; we don’t _do_ shit like this!”

And he flinched. Swear to God he flinched, wiping a hand to get his bangs out of his eyes and for a second I felt sorry for him, which is weird because it was pretty clear that he was some sort of trained assassin or something, especially with the metal hand.

I took a breath and shifted to Russian. _“Look, I owe you, I do, and I don’t know if you’ve got a plan or money or anything, but I’m getting out of here and I know a safe spot where I can lay low. You can come along if you don’t have any place else to go, okay?”_

 _"Dah,”_ he managed in a voice so soft and so tired that I almost didn’t hear it.

So I reached out, took his metal hand and squeezed it. “Good. Come on; I need my phone and keys and a few other things.”


	2. Chapter 2

Ten minutes later and we were out of there in my old Ford Taurus, hitting the on ramp to the turnpike. Traffic was light now that it was nearly ten, but I was so tense that my hands were aching as I gripped the wheel. Delayed shock I guess, along with more adrenaline surging through me. Over in the passenger seat my co-pilot sat with his eyes constantly scanning ahead, but absolutely still otherwise; he was like the best behaved Doberman ever.

We drove for an hour, making it over the bridges and heading deeper upstate without a word. Finally I couldn’t take it anymore.

“So what’s your name?” I asked to try and keep my anxiety from building any further. “I mean, I know it’s not Winter Soldier, and I need to call you _some_ thing. I’m Mel, by the way.”

We were heading north, on highway 17, flying along in the dark, and with every mile I was relaxing a bit even while I still kept an eye out for flashing lights.

“Melvin?” he rasped.

“Melora,” I shot back, giving him a sidelong glance that I hoped would pass on my annoyance. “Melora Ivana Christiana Zherdev.”

The littlest smirk rose on the corner of his mouth. “Melvin’s shorter.”

“Melvin’s a _guy’s_ name. Or a wedgie, and I’m neither.”

He said nothing for a few minutes and I was beginning to wonder if he was having mental issues when he finally spoke up again. “Mel?”

“Sometimes I go by Mel,” I agreed. “Now _your_ turn.”

Another long silence. I don’t really like those, but having grown up in a house full of them I’ve learn to wait them out most of the time. I cleared my throat.

“I’m . . . not sure what my name is,” he finally sighed.

I gave a nod and figured my assumption of a little brain damage was probably right. I could see why whoever was in charge of him would want to collect him safely, sure—that arm of his was probably the equivalent of the Six Million Ruble Man prosthesis, but the rest of him was human and hurting. “Okay. You sound American, by the way. Your Russian’s good but kind of flat.”

He gave a little grunt. I tried again. “I’m going to call you _some_ thing—Tom, Dick, Harry . . .”

“J-j-j,” he began in a slightly strangled tone. I risked a look at him, feeling like shit for making him struggle.

“Joe? Jerry? James?”

“J-James,” he gasped, and then pressed his hands to his temples. I noticed a little dribble of drool on his lower lip and I thought I could see some blood as well.

“Easy, easy,” I told him in as quiet a voice as I could make. “James then. James is good, okay?”

He nodded and took his cap off, letting it drop to the floor of the car while he kept rubbing his temples. Since his left side was closest to me I could see his forearm glittering in the dim light of the highway signs, and all of a sudden Terminator movie flashbacks flickered in my head; I veered a little before getting a hold of both the wheel and my imagination.

“There’s someplace we need to stop about ninety minutes from here,” I told him, trying to speak slowly. “For some supplies—food, water. I need some ointment for my lip and meds for my head. Do you need anything?”

Again with the long pauses. Clearly simple conversation wasn’t James’ strong point, but he turned his face to me and gave a perplexed look as he replied, “don’t know.”

Okay then. I figured I’d do an assessment when we stopped at Lloyd’s Market, and in the meantime I tried to make a list in my head of what we’d need to hole up for a bit. I don’t mean to make it sound like I had an actual _plan_ or anything, but I’d gotten some oblique advice on it from my relatives. When they’d take me up to the lake every year they’d drop little suggestions on what canned goods last longest, and about paying for things in cash. That last one wouldn’t be a problem anyway—on the back seat of the Taurus along with my Misono knives was my old ceramic cookie jar shaped like a mushroom. It was a flea market special, and I’d been putting a good chunk of my savings into it since high school. Not everyone keeps a few thousand dollars in a tacky bisque mushroom but right now it was a godsend.

I kept driving. Part of me wondered why I wasn’t terrified about my passenger. By rights I _should_ be. He’d killed Dobrov and probably put Gloria into a coma without even working up a sweat. From what those two had said I figured he was an assassin with cyborg parts, and all that should have been more than enough to send any sane person screaming into the night.

But he’d also freed me, and tried to prevent Dobrov from killing Uncle. He’d killed Dobrov for hurting me, and kept Gloria from doing the same. For an assassin he didn’t seem very cold-blooded, just confused and tired. And there was the fact that he came with me, on his own.

That confused _me._

Of course, I wasn’t exactly sure why I’d offered him the option in the first place—maybe something in my reptilian brain figured he’d be my best chance of getting out of whatever this Hydra Cold-War mess my relatives had been involved with. One thing I _did_ know was that the shit was going to hit the fan pretty soon—probably within a day or two—and common sense told me to be as far away and safe as I could make myself, so that meant the lake.

Great Sacandaga Lake to be precise. The relatives and I used to go up there are the end of the school year and spend a few weeks in the cabin Uncle Mischa owned. He’d bought into an acre not far from the water and I’d always loved the place. Right now it was the safest, most remote spot I could think of reaching.

Of course, I was going to have to leave a message for work and another one for Ed, but those could wait until morning. I was starting to get that post-adrenaline slump now, and was glad when I spotted the exit that would bring us to Lloyd’s Market. We pulled into the parking lot a short while later and I looked at James. “I think you ought to wait in the car.”

He nodded, shooting a glance at his hand, which sort of glittered in the parking lot lighting. “Yes.”

“Is there anything you want, in particular?” I asked, leaning over to pull the lid of the cookie jar off and grab a handful of bills. “What do you eat?”

“Eat?” 

Now I stared at him, and terrible little suspicions rose up in my mind, particularly when I noticed he was a bit . . . lean. “Let me guess; you don’t eat. Probably juice and do protein shakes, right? Maybe a colon-flushing cleanse now and then?”

He got back into my good graces by making a face and leaning away from me, so I burst out laughing because honest to god he reminded me of that internet meme—Grumpy Cat. 

“Okay, okay, maybe not that. I was planning on getting staples like milk and eggs and whatever fruit’s in season, but if there’s something else you want too—beer or hamburgers or chips--”

“Beer?” he murmured, and then with more conviction, “beer.”

“Fine. What’s your brand?”

It took a few moments, but he finally murmured, “Schlitz.”

I nodded, and patted his shoulder. “Good. I should be back in about fifteen minutes.”

I cruised into Lloyds, glad that they hadn’t closed yet, and did a triple speed run-through, pushing my cart up and down the aisles as I loaded up. I got the essentials and added a lot of impulse buys too—bread, toiletries, flashlights, cereal, first aid kit, canned stuff. I couldn’t remember if we’d left anything in the pantry so I picked up chili and soups, then managed to snag the last six-pack of Schlitz in bottles before heading to the checkout.

The girl behind the counter barely looked at me as she rang everything up, but when I handed over the money I saw her notice my lip. She looked sad as she made change. “Someone hit you, honey?”

I had to think fast.

“Yeah,” I told her in a mumble, “but I got my licks in and I’m never going back. Anybody asks, you didn’t see me, ok?”

“You bet. Good luck,” she added, and helped me put the bags in the cart. I made my way out slowly, in case she was watching me, and circled around before getting to the Taurus. Once I got in the car, I pulled out my cell phone, but James slid that metal hand of his over it. “Tracking. GPS chip. Got rid of mine a week ago, but phones . . .”

I gritted my teeth because he was probably right and I hated it. This iPhone was my baby; I had everything from my tunes to my last photo of mom on it, but it could be hacked and tracked. I turned it off and pulled the battery out before dropping the two parts back into my purse. “Okay then. To the lake.”

This part of the drive wasn’t long but it was in the dark, and I had to be a little more careful. I found the turn-off, and made my way along the rutted road lined with pines for a few miles until we reached the bottom of the hill and pulled to the left, to the gravel road that went another three miles down almost to the shoreline. The cabin was there, dark and nearly hidden by the pines. I got the car as close to the back door as I could, and then hopped out. The mini flashlight on my keychain threw a beam out and I made my way to the little cupboard that housed the gas main.

There she was, dusty and dirty, wedged nearly behind the meter. I picked up the Matryoshka and popped her open, then the next three inside her until I pulled the keys out of the last hollow doll. Good old Uncle Mischa . . . too paranoid to take the keys back to the city, so he always left them here. I turned back to the car and bumped into James, who had slipped up like a shadow behind me.

He was good at that, and I would have yelped but honestly? I was too tired so I just growled at him, and trudged around to the front of the cabin to unlock the doors. The rooms had that musty scent mingled with dust and pine and lake water and for a long moment nostalgia threatened to make me cry. Memories here, lots of them. My family loved this place and it was one of the few where they were happy. Where we were happy. The four of them playing cards or chess while I read or made little arts and crafts at the table . . . the singing, particularly after dark . . . it washed over me for a second and I swayed a little because I missed them so much.

“Hey,” James murmured and that brought me back. He had two bags in his hands and stood there, waiting for directions. For orders I guess.

“Kitchen’s over there,” I pointed and shone the light for him. “We can use the flashlights and the Coleman lantern for now. My Uncle keeps the circuit breakers off when we’re not here and I’ll find them in the morning.”

The next hour was busy, but I managed to get things unpacked and some eggs scrambled for us on the gas range. James wandered around, exploring everything, and it seemed strange that he was so silent at it—you’d think in those heavy boots of his anyone could hear him but no, he slunk around like a cat, touching this and picking up that, sometimes sniffing things. I wondered what he was thinking, and then unkindly I bet _he_ was wondering what he was thinking too.

That was mean so I chided myself and served up the eggs, along with some toast. “All right, time to eat, and then we’re going to get some sleep. Or try to, anyway.” My analgesics were kicking in, and while my lip slice hurt, it was pretty superficial; some ointment and I’d be fine in a few days. I’d had worse cuts in my early days of cooking anyway.

James waited until I pointed at one of the chairs, and then I set a plate in front of him before filling one for myself and sitting down. Out of curiosity I put a beer out at his place and had a soda for myself. “Come on, it’s basic but it should be good.”

I knew my eggs would be; I started my training at Waffle World where everyone has you for breakfast and if you can’t handle seventy orders in forty-five minutes, you’re sweetly invited not to come back, regardless of your cordon bleu credentials or culinary school grades.

So I took a few bites, watching him out of the corner of my eye, and . . . wow. The first bite was tentative, as if he’d forgotten how to work a fork, but once it was in, his eyes widened . . . “Whoa, slow down, there’s plenty!” I warned him. “You’ll choke at that pace!”

I hadn’t seen anyone eat that fast outside of a cartoon. He’d brought the plate up to his dimpled chin and was practically pouring the eggs in, chewing and swallowing almost frantically. I stared at James until he caught my gaze, stopped, and slowly lowered his plate.

“They’re good,” he told me in that quiet monotone.

“Yeaaah, I know,” I nodded. “I cook for a living, so I do know my way around food. That’s what the knives in the back seat are for.”

He looked puzzled at that, so I let it go and motioned to the beer. James took it, flipping the screwcap off with a flick of his metal thumb, and hesitantly brought it to his mouth, tipping it back. I won’t lie; watching him swallow was definitely sexy, with that Adam’s apple bobbing as it did. James took in about half the bottle and when he pulled it back I watched him lick the foam from around his lips. More sexy, grrrr.

“Made famous,” he intoned. “Somewhere. Still good.”

“Milwaukee,” I said. “Man that’s an old slogan.”

James nodded and finished it. When he was done, he asked, “Is there more?”

I hesitated, and then nodded to the little cold cooler where I was keeping our perishables. I hoped he wasn’t going to drink them all and said so.

He shook his head, his hair waving a little in the light of the Coleman. “Just one more. It’s been . . . a long time.” 

“Mind if I have one?”

James shot me a look, and held it, but this time instead of that Basset Hound sadness, I caught a glint of something that wanted to make me squirm. It was just a flicker, gone in an instant, but the corner of his mouth went up and he pulled two bottles from the cooler.

We sat on the steps of the front porch, looking out at the dark water between the trees and drank together in silence. I wasn’t much of a beer drinker but it tasted all right, and the view calmed me a lot, with only a few lights visible on the far, far side of the lake and a nice scattering of stars above.   
I took a breath. “I’m afraid,” I told the man next to me. “Really afraid. I don’t know what to do.”

He said nothing for a long, long time, but I wasn’t worried about it because I was sort of getting used to his quietness. The chill in the twilight was starting to get to me, and I made a move to stand up, but James finally spoke, his voice slow in the darkness. “Me too.”

It was all he said.

The cabin had a sleeping porch with double beds, and a pullout in the sofa. I asked him which one he wanted, and he opted for the sofa but didn’t open it up, just stretched out on the nubbly cushions and closed his eyes. The man didn’t even take his boots off. I told him goodnight and made my way to the porch, stripping down to my underwear and burrowing under the musty blankets. All the little night noises took some getting used to, and I tried hard to sleep, but before that could happen I knew what I needed to do.  
I muffled most of my crying in the pillow because I didn’t want James to hear me.

*** *** ***

Morning showed up before I was ready for it, but I felt better once opened my eyes. My face ached a little where Dobrov had smacked me and I was a little stiff, but the smell of the pines and the simple knowledge of where I was helped, so I got up and stretched. I climbed back into my slacks and did a quick scrub up of my face in the bathroom, then tiptoed into the living room.

The sofa was empty. I sort of expected that, but it still sent a pang through me to think I really was alone now, and gave a sigh.

_”Good morning.”_

_”Jesus fucking Christ will you STOP popping out of nowhere at me you spooky son of motherfucking BITCH!”_ I spluttered, spinning around to look up at James. He arched an eyebrow but he didn’t look mad; only a little perplexed and maybe even the tiniest teeniest bit amused.

I took a breath. “Sorry, sorry. I know I curse a lot; bad habit from work and I don’t mean it. It’s just you really do scare the shit out of me when you just show _up_ like that.”

“I’ve been trained not to make noise,” he replied. A flat response, but an honest one, and I found myself nodding.

“Uh, yeah, okay. Just . . . maybe say something _before_ you make me crap myself, okay?”

That earned me a ghost of a smile, and he dipped his head in agreement. I moved around him and into the kitchen, opening cupboards and peering into them, trying to remember where the little samovar was. I found it, and set it out, then went outside to trip the breakers and get the power going. There was a nip to the air and that lovely dampness that only comes from being by the water. Lots of squirrels out, chattering, and birds flitting from tree to tree. After I snapped the breakers I scurried back inside and got some coffee started. Yes I was breaking my dead mother’s heart by making it in the samovar, but I just never got into tea, myself, and especially not their crumbly old Lipton.

The cupboards had some nice surprises, including Bisquick, sugar and baking soda, so I’d be able to do some pancakes, but I put that thought aside and went out to the living room where James was sitting, his hands dangling between his knees, staring at nothing. 

“Hey,” I told him. “Power’s on, so if you give it an hour you can take a hot shower if you’d like.”

He turned his head and rose up. “I . . . don’t mind the cold.”

That made me wrinkle my nose. “Fine, suit yourself. Let’s see what’s in the closets first.”

Both my dad and Uncle Mischa were on the lean side, and luckily so was James. I found a few pairs of drawstring shorts, a pair of grey sweat pants, and one pair of overalls in the bedroom closet. Overalls, yeah—I think my dad used them with waders for fishing. The two shirts were long underwear thermals, but clean, so at least my guest was going to be able to blend in.

I on the other hand, winced as I found my Aunt ‘Milla’s culottes and some denim skirts that went down to my calves. The only tops here were sleeveless blouses, and there was a bathing suit with a skirt.

In lime-green polka dots.

This was too much, and I decided I’d be doing some discreet shopping ASAP, because wow, this wardrobe needed help. To take my mind off of the dim clothing situation, and the knowledge that James had opted to take his polar bear (or was that bare?) shower anyway, I headed back to the kitchen and got cooking.

Cooking’s good. I got into it early on, and with my parents’ blessing made it my career, because as they told me, good cooks can always find work. They put me through the Institute of Culinary Education where I fast-tracked it. The school wanted to place me themselves, but I told them no thanks and went knocking on doors on my own, going to restaurants I’d admired, looking for work. Waffle World was one place I’d worked, and so was Goldman’s Deli. At the moment I was working for Porterhouse Esq. over in the theater district, but since I wouldn’t be showing up today, and wasn’t calling in, I suppose I could kiss _that_ job goodbye.

Ah well, I didn’t mind as much as I thought. They paid well, but I didn’t like the menu much, and the wait staff was stingy about tipping out to the busboys. Next interview if they asked about why I’d left without notice, I’d just murmur something about seeing mouse droppings and smile apologetically.

The pancakes fluffed up perfectly, and I had them on the table within minutes, along with some juice. By now the sound of the shower had stopped, and to distract myself from imagining what James looked like (oh yum I’m sure) I turned on the old radio on the kitchen counter. My aunt always had the dial set to the classical music station so something elegant was playing while I waited. 

He stepped in right as I was sipping coffee and I coughed a little because he looked . . . he looked good. Really good. _Dangerously_ good. I had no idea I was even _capable_ of harboring this sort of interest in a strange man but in my defense it had been a long time since I’d dated, and all the events of the night before were sort of magnifying my emotions. But believe it or not, the man rocked the thermal undershirt and overalls look, coming across like a grunge band drummer. James finished drying his hair and draped the towel around his neck before slowly sitting down. I gave him a nod. “Feel better?”

“Yes,” he agreed. “I couldn’t find a razor, though.” When he ran his metal hand over his chin I could hear the scratch of whiskers and grinned.

“You don’t look too bad with scruff, but if it bothers you I can pick up some blades later today.”

He gave an absent nod, his whole focus on the plate in front of him, and I got that ‘well-trained Doberman’ vibe again because while it was clear he was dying to dive into those pancakes, he still needed someone—me now, I guess—to give him permission.

“Dig in,” I sighed. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that his appreciation of my cooking made my ego puff up big-time. I love to cook, and I love to see people enjoy what I make, so James here was giving me all sorts of warm fuzzies on that front. Still, I didn’t want to do the Heimlich on him, especially before I’d finished my coffee, so I cleared my throat to remind him to slow down. “Plenty for seconds, no need to rush.”

He looked up, still chewing, eyes wide. I tried not to laugh.

The music faded out and the announcer began giving the news, recapping the story about the clean-up around the DC area and the fallout within the senate about Alexander Pierce’s death. I watched James, and suddenly a chill flushed through me as _Boom_ I made the connections I _should_ have made last night. I tensed, feeling my mouth go dry despite my coffee. When I looked at James, he was looking right back at me, and I would see the stress all over his face.

“Did you . . .”

“—Yes. I was . . . a part of that. Not Pierce. He wasn’t my target.”

“Oh God,” was all I could manage for a moment.

James looked helplessly at me, his jaw working a bit and he managed to get more out. “I failed my mission. No. I _stopped_ my mission. It was . . . .” He trailed off, face twisting in pain and I pushed back from the table, trying not to freak out as he gripped that metal hand of his around his fork, crumpling it without realizing it.

“You stopped _yourself,_ ” I blurted, trying to keep the table between us even as I braced my feet. “Uh, that was good.”

I had no idea if it was good or not, but I wanted to keep him soothed. He rocked his head a little from side to side. “No, no . . .”

“Yes it _was,_ ” I insisted, wondering if he was going to have a breakdown right here. “If you didn’t kill because you chose not to, that _was_ good. You don’t _have_ to follow orders, James. Not anymore.”

James looked up and God, his eyes were wet. I’ve never seen a human being look more miserable in my life, utterly devastated by whatever was going on in his mind. I was still afraid, yeah, but I scooted around the table until I could reach him, and I pulled his head up against my chest, cradling it. He fought me, but only for a few moments, and when he finally relaxed I counted it as a victory against the demons in his brain.

He shook, and I know he cried but the man never made a sound beyond a little snuffling as he let me stroke his hair. Our pancakes and coffee went cold; the radio moved from the weather and car commercials back to classical music while I let James rest his head against the pillow of my breasts. I wish I could say I was a natural at comforting people, but I was aware every second of his touch, of how damp my shirt was getting, both from his tears and my own nervous sweat.

I grew up in a house full of emotional outbursts, so I’m well aware of their ebb and flow. You blow up; you yell, scream, cry . . . and then there’s the quietness where everything’s said by touch. My mother sobbing in my aunt’s arms after her miscarriage. My father crying while my uncle stroked his back when news of riots in Latvia showed bodies on the evening news. It’s a cultural thing, yeah, but it’s also the way my family was, so I felt a little better recognizing what James was going through . . . sort of.

Finally he raised his head and took a deep breath, settling back into that perfect posture again, and I squatted down a little to look at his profile. His cheek was red where he’d pressed it against me, and I touched it, very gently.

James flinched, and I pulled back. “Hey. You’re going to be all right.”

He shot me a look as painful as a burn; a bleak glance that made my unfounded assurance sizzle away for the useless comfort that it was.

_Space,_ I told myself. _He needs some space._ So I got up and went to the stove, puttered with the pan and made a few more flapjacks just to give myself something to do. Were my feelings hurt? Yes. He wasn’t the only person in pain this morning, and I bet he didn’t even realize that. Probably didn’t dawn on him that we both were in emotionally rickety boats today but it wouldn’t do any good to point that out, not right now. So I finished using the batter and waited for him to get up and leave.

When I thought I heard him go, I turned around.

“GEEZ!” I gasped, because not only was he right behind me, but also right _in_ my personal space. James did smile that time. Just a flicker, so quick it was barely there, but I saw it.

He dropped his head so that his bangs hung down. “Thank you.”

Then he slipped out of the kitchen, leaving me standing there, wondering if I’d imagined it all. Spooky man, tormented man, and me not sure what to expect next.


	3. Chapter 3

The day cleared and I went down the little trail to the water’s edge once I’d done the dishes. James came too; he was still in that sort of stand-by mode, so when I suggested going down I had to formally invite him. I led the way, pushing back some of the bushes that were reaching out over the path, and holding them so he wouldn’t get slapped with them. The cabin was on the high side of the lake, and more isolated than most of the other resort areas around Great Sacandaga, which was why my family liked it. Our nearest neighbor was half a mile to the west, and on the east side was a fire watch tower, so it was pretty secluded. Lots of pines all around. Since it was the off-season, I didn’t expect too many people to be around. 

There would be a few, sure—locals and some of the year-round weekend visitors, but not as many as during the summer. Still, I peeked out before stepping onto the little beach and getting a good look at the water. I remembered that water, oh yes. Cold and clear; one of the best parts of vacation. We had a little cove here and the sand had built up enough so I could wade in it back in the day. No way I was going to be sporting Aunt ‘Milla’s polka-dot suit today though; too cold even for me.

The short wooden dock was still there too. It had been built at the same time as the cabin, but we’d never had a boat. My family would set chairs on the dock, and fish from it, but that was about as much as they interacted with the actual lake, which was the way they liked it. Even now the smell of Coppertone makes me think of the four of them on the dock.

I climbed up on it and went to the end, looking around, enjoying the breeze off the water. A few boats were visible in the distance; mostly outboards with fishermen who’d probably been there since dawn, and further to the west a sailboat gliding around and looking picturesque. I felt James join me, gliding over to stand at my shoulder and when I did a sidelong glance I saw he was taking it all in.

“Pretty, huh?”

“Exposed,” he murmured. “No cover unless you use the dock itself. We’ll be able to see them if they choose to come in over the water.”

Alarmed, I looked up at him, hoping James was making a joke and inwardly aware that he probably wasn’t. “Them?”

“Hydra,” he replied flatly. “Their agents. I belong to them and they’ll try to collect me.”

“Hey, you don’t belong to _anyone._ This is America. The thirteenth Amendment shuts that shit down.”

“You sound just like . . .” James murmured, and trailed off, shaking his head again. “. . . someone. It doesn’t matter to them. I am . . . a weapon, Melvin. I’ll always be a weapon. _Their_ weapon.”

“Sounds to me,” I began slowly, trying to pick my way through a lot of emotions churning up again inside, “like maybe you don’t _want_ that anymore. Like maybe you’d like to be James.”

He laughed a little, a hollow sound, and turned to me, raising his hand. Most of his metal arm was covered by the sleeve of the thermal shirt, but his hand glittered in the light as he flexed it in front of me. “I was made into a tool for them to use. The biggest hammer in the box. They’re not going to give me up that easily.”

“You’d be a tool if you let them,” I shot back, and I took his hand. Funny, for metal it was pretty smooth and warm. I know he couldn’t feel me squeeze it, but I did. “Listen, you might be a big damn hammer, but you can _choose_ what you want to hit, and _who_ gets to swing you, all right?”

“Can I?” he snapped, and it was the first time I heard some real anger in his voice. Not at me, but at the situation. 

I cupped his face in my hands and made him look down at me. “Yes. You. Can,” I told him in my best Alpha chef voice.

God damn it his eyes were so blue! I had to let go of him before I did something stupid like kiss him, so I pulled my fingers off his scruff and took a deep breath. “Tell me what you think’s going to happen and what we should do about it.”

James watched me for a moment, and then turned his head back towards the cabin. “Okay. Inside though.”

We headed back, and I felt a lot more paranoid now, even though everything seemed peaceful enough. When we were in the living room, we sat, and James spoke, slowly, frowning a lot as he did so. “Right now Hydra is in turmoil. They will be looking for ways to re-group. They will be looking for me, but I’m a secondary consideration for the moment because it will be more important for them to hide and assess the exposure they’ve had. The agents at your house may or may not have had time to report in, but we won’t know for a while.”

Getting even _that_ much out seemed to be a huge effort for him and James gave a little shudder.

I gave a little nod. “Sooo we have a little time then. If they find you . . . you don’t intend on giving _in_ , do you?”

He hesitated, and then shook his head. “No. The purpose they had for me . . . it isn’t mine. It isn’t from me.”

“You want your life back.” It sounded sort of cliché, but here I was staring at a man with a prosthetic arm and a fucked-up mind; a man who clearly hadn’t lived his own life in ages.

“I want . . . a life.”

“Okay,” I told him, trying not to let my voice shake. “Okay then. So how do you want to get started on that?”

“I need to find out everything I can about . . . the Howling Commandos.”

***  
Broadalbin is the closest town to the cabin, and it’s not huge. People here actually call it a village, but it’s large enough to have a town hall and a police department and a library. They’re all in the same building complex, which is a little nerve-wracking, but hey, if James wanted information this was the place to go. I figured a public computer would be a hell of a lot harder to trace, and with any luck I could get in touch with Ed and find out what was going on with the house.

And Uncle Mischa’s body.

So that meant getting a skateboard design hoodie and a glove for James. I poked the lenses out of a pair of Ray bans and told him to wear the frames; he looked at me oddly but did as he was told.

Me, I tied a rag ‘do for my upcurl look and laid on the Maybelline pretty heavily to Goth myself good. We got large cups of coffee and I slouched against him, talking under my breath as we headed for the library doors. “We’ll try for whatever’s open and see what’s there, but I think the Commandos will be listed in the encyclopedias and reference books too if they don’t have any computers available.”

Thank God the library was small enough that they didn’t have a security system—that might have screwed us over if his arm set it off. Instead, we wandered in, were politely advised to dump our coffees, and given access to a pair of Dells old enough to vote. I signed on, settled James in front of the general reference page and sat at the other one next to him, logging on and checking my email.

Three notes from Ed, the subject lines getting more desperate on each one, a bunch of offers from Cuisinart, and my Visa bill. I opened Ed’s emails, scanning them quickly.

Yesterday.  
 _From: PastryBoy223_  
To: NinjaChefMel  
Subject: Job interview  
Mel, if Take the Cake calls, plsplspls give me a glowing ref; you know I’ll return the favor.

Last night.  
 _From: PastryBoy223_  
To: NinjaChefMel  
Subject: Where are you?  
Mel, If you’re not going to look at your texts, then at least answer your phone!

Two hours ago.  
 _From: PastryBoy223_  
To: NinjaChefMel  
Subject:WTF!!!!!!  
Mel where the fuck are you? Feds are asking and I’m scared shitless.CALL ME!

Calling was absolutely out because James was right; my phone was sure to be tracked the minute I turned it on. Hell, someone was probably watching my account right now, but it would take a while for them to figure out where I was if I was quick and signed off before they could triangulate or whatever they did with the satellites. I owed Ed a note but part of me was terrified to drag him into this.

I should explain that Ed’s a buddy of mine from culinary school. He’s an absolute master of pastry, a whiz with icing, fondant, cakes and tarts. Seriously, he could be on any one of those fancy cooking shows you see, but he gets pushed around in our business because he’s 1) black, and 2) about ninety pounds. Very few people are willing to take him seriously despite his talent and it kills me because he’s so good. He and I bonded early on and kept up the friendship through all of our ups and downs of working in the city.

Anyway, I gnawed on a thumbnail, wondering what to say when I noticed James was staring at a photo on his screen, so I peeked over at it.

Whoa. There he was. Hair a lot shorter, but I’d know that chin by now, and he was next to a tall blond, both of them looking a little sheepish. The caption below said: _Sergeant James ‘Bucky’ Barnes and Captain Steve Rogers were the American contingent of the Howling Commandos._

I risked a sidelong look at James and his expression looked . . . strained. Concentrated. Since I didn’t want to interrupt him, I hit the ‘reply’ button for Ed and typed a single sentence.

_Out of town emergency; will catch up with you soon, good luck on Take The Cake._

I wish I could have put some secret message in it, some code to let him know I okay but it was the best I could do. He’d worry, but it would be less. I signed off, and took a look at Google news, wondering if there was anything there about a house in Brooklyn.

Nope. I supposed that was good; if there was some major story about ‘Secret Spy Lab Uncovered! 3 Bodies Found!’ I’d really be tense and nervous. Not that I wasn’t already, but I guess no news is good news. Sighing, I signed off and rolled my chair closer to James, looking at his screen.

He’d tapped into Wikipedia article and I scanned it, realizing very quickly that the man next to me not only had been a soldier in WWII, but was also . . . ninety years old. Yeow! 

Also, his nickname had been ‘Bucky.’

Bucky? That sounded like something you’d name the family dog. I looked at his profile, trying to think of him as ‘Bucky’ and it wasn’t coming very easily, not with that smoldering intensity . . .

He turned and the space between our noses was about four inches. I swallowed because his eyes were so damned blue behind those empty frames. “I had a life,” James murmured with a little surprise in his voice. “This says I was from Brooklyn.”

“Small world,” I breathed. “Me too.”

He smiled. Damn, a full-on, really smile, with dimples and everything. Serious dimples too, and I don’t know what would have happened next if I hadn’t bumped the mouse right off the desktop. Thing was so old it still had a cord so it dangled there, sort of breaking the moment. I scooted back and put the thing back on the table, but I was aware of the librarian scowling at us from her desk, so I sighed. “I think we need to leave.”

He nodded and followed me, still with that ramrod posture, and we moved up the street where I put my arm through his. Just for disguise.

James looked down at it and smirked ever so slightly. We made our way towards the parking lot, passing a few shops on the way and I spoke quietly to him. “So . . . did you get enough, or do we need another visit?”

“For now it’s helped. Seeing the photos . . . has helped. I was there. I am him.”

“I have to tell you, I’m going to have trouble calling you Bucky,” I confessed. “It’s not exactly a dignified name.”

He stopped and I was forced to look at him, and this time there were no dimples. “They took my name _from_ me and gave me a label. Winter Soldier wasn’t a name, it was a title, a category, a . . . _weapon_. Well I want my name back, Melvin.”

“Here you are bitching about names and you’re calling me _Melvin?_ ”

He paused, his expression flickering, and this time I had to squirm when he said, “Mel. Sorry, it’s a . . . a memory thing. I don’t always remember information in the short-term.”

I nodded. “Yeah, I get that. So what do you want me to call you—James, or Bucky?”

His mouth twitched, and he gave a sigh. “James is good. The other name is still . . . .”

“New?”

“Yeah,” he nodded. “It’s me to someone else.”

I found a flyer on the windshield of the car that was touting the Harvest Carnival, and handed it to James as we climbed in. BIG FUN! PRIZES! RIDES! it shouted at us in orange lettering. The sheet had all the standard photos of people with painted faces and balloons, soaring on roller-coasters of course, and I was amused to see him stare at it intently.  
“Wanna go?” I asked.

He looked up. “What?”

“Wanna go? It’s only about six blocks from here, and I’m a sucker for cotton candy,” I replied. It’s the truth; I love spun candy and have the fillings to prove it.

“Will there be . . .” he touched one photo almost reverently, “corndogs?”

“ _All_ you can eat, on me,” I giggled, and that clinched the deal.


	4. Chapter 4

The fairgrounds weren’t big and the crowd was pretty light; according to the flyer the fair was close to the end of its run and that was fine by me. James and I paid for our tickets and looked at the little map on the brochure that came with them. I could smell hay and popcorn and cotton candy in the air in a really lovely combination. The PA system was playing some golden oldies station tune and we wandered in, trying to decide where to go.

“Food or games?” I asked, glad that I had dipped into the cookie jar before we’d left the cabin.

“Food.”

This answer didn’t surprise me, and I nodded, herding my guest towards the concession area. He started slow but picked up speed once he saw the number of booths, and I had to jog to keep up with him. “Hey! Slow down!”

“Sorry,” James said absently. “What’s . . . a churro?”

“Fried dough stick rolled in sugar and cinnamon. They’re good. Over there are funnel cakes, and that’s the kettle corn wagon, and there---”

He was off again, striding towards the corn dog stand, a man on a mission. I caught up with James just in time to hear him order, “Seven corndogs.”

“Seven?” I gulped. 

He gave a worried look and turned to the vendor. “Sorry. Eight corndogs.”

“Hungry, huh?” the vendor deadpanned, and James nodded.

I paid, and shot him a sidelong glance. “I appreciate that it’s been a while since you’ve had a corndog and that I told you I’d get you all you could eat, but I’m also not going to let you stuff yourself until you get sick, okay? Two of those corndogs are for me and you may have the rest. _Pace_ yourself.”

A mulish expression crossed his face; very emo under the hoodie, but he reluctantly nodded before looking around. He did that at regular intervals, I noticed—checked the area as if looking for someone. At the moment the late afternoon crowd was thin and mostly parents with kids or older folks enjoying the last of the fun, I guess. 

When the vendor handed the corn dogs to us, piled into a couple of those rectangular paper bowl things, James brought one up to his face and sniffed it. Embarrassed, I steered him to the picnic table area, rolling my eyes. I’d snagged some mustard and ketchup packets already, so we wouldn’t have to go back. “All right Mr. Impatient, eat up.”

He did, chowing down steadily, and looking pretty blissful now that he had his mouth full of cornbread batter and frankfurter. He wasn’t a messy eater, or disgusting, the way some guys could be—no, just an efficient one, bushing his hair back periodically and plowing his way through. I was barely halfway through my first one when James finished his sixth, giving a gusty sigh of satisfaction that cracked me up.

“Was it good for you?” I asked.

“Copacetic,” he sighed, eyeing my remaining dog. I dropped a hand over it protectively, and for a moment he hesitated, then gave me that Basset Hound stare.

“No,” I told him, even as my resolve crumbled a bit. _“Mine.”_

_”You’re beautiful when you’re stern,”_ James murmured, still holding that liquid-eyed stare on me. 

I sighed. I pushed the bowl towards him. _”Cheap trick.”_

He didn’t say anything, but saluted me with the corndog, smiling this time, and I realized that before this man had been turned into a semi-cyborg assassin, he had probably been a very dangerous flirt.

Afterwards we wandered down the alley where the games were, trying to steer clear of the crowded ones and generally taking in the atmosphere. I hadn’t been to a carnival in a long time, and it’s funny how even though they’re hokey and expensive and sometimes sort of stupid, they’re also . . . fun. Fun in a way that makes you love childhood and summer and companionship. I felt James slow as we reached the pitching booth.

The hawker was a round Latina woman with a gold tooth and tattoos of the Virgin Mary on her forearms. She caught our pause and called to us in a lovely husky voice. “Ohh, I see someone who needs to win his novia a prize! Come on, come on, Handsome, and show her what you’ve got!”

She set three softballs on the tray on the counter and gave us an outrageous wink that made me laugh. James took a sleepwalker’s step forward.

“Base. Baseball.”

“Well, softball really,” I said for clarity’s sake, but he didn’t hear me.

“Pitching. Catching. Batting. RBIs. _Dodgers,_ ” James recited, his voice cracking a little. “Higbe, Grissom, Durocher, Peewee REESE!”

“Uh, yeah, yeah,” I tried to soothe him, but the man was on a roll and he walked up to the booth, grinning. I watched him pick up one of the softballs with his right hand, tossing it up and down.

“Dolph Camili won The Sporting News MVP in forty-one. First baseman, a lefty. Batting style was a little wild, but he managed thirty-four home runs the last season . . . the last season . . .” his voice broke a little, “the last one I remember.”

“Yeah?” The hawker nodded, taking the three bucks I laid on the counter. “Well let’s see if you can do him proud, amigo.”

I held my breath because James was staring at the ball in his hand as if it held the secrets of the universe. But a moment later he looked up at the three milkcans stacked against the back wall of the booth, and I swear I could hear gears clicking in his head.

He took a step, cocked his arm and the ‘CLANG!’ reverberated so loudly that you could hear it all up and down the midway. The Latina lady let out a little curse but she was grinning at the same time. She held up a hand to stop James from his second pitch because yes, the cans were all knocked over. Knocked over, and when she pulled them up, the second milkcan had a perfect softball shaped dent in it.

James self-consciously pulled his hood down a bit more as a few people laughed and one applauded. The hawker waved to the rack, her voice loud and amused. “Okay, pick your prize sweetheart! Come on folks, _anyone_ can win!”

I looked up at the selection, feeling giggles rise up inside me as I studied the plushy options above. Spongebob was out, as was the goofy-looking Iron Man, but the soft, fluffy tiger? 

“That one, please,” I told the hawker, who fished it down and handed it to me. 

She winked at James. “Thanks for the publicity, man . . . they’re lining up _now!_ ”

James nodded and turned away, hands stuffed in his pockets, and I scurried to catch up, tucking my tiger under one arm. “You okay?”

“That was stupid,” he mumbled. “Dangerous. _We do not bring attention to ourselves. We do not show off.”_

I looked back; nobody was looking our way as far as I could tell. I followed him a few more steps and then sighed. “Slow down, please?”

He did, reluctantly, peering out from under his hood to scan the perimeter. “This was a mistake.”

“Why? Because you won?” I huffed, feeling a little discouraged. We’d been having a good time up to now and I hated seeing him go cold like this. “People win at these games you know. It _does_ happen.”

James spun and caught me by the shoulders, his gloved hand a little heavier than his other. “People are also _looking_ for us. For me. And I do not want to get you killed because I was _showing off!_ ”

I held his gaze, keeping calm, giving him time to settle. “Not at a carnival,” I pointed out softly. “This is probably one of the safest places to be. It’s public and frivolous, and not where anyone is expecting to find you.”

He looked unconvinced, but I added, “Thanks for the tiger, Tiger.”

That got a flicker of a smile.

“I still want cotton candy. And maybe a ride on the Ferris Wheel.”

That got an eyeroll, and I considered the crisis over for the moment.

***  
The entire evening I found myself fighting my attraction to him. I chided myself, reminded myself of all the reasons why getting involved with him would be a terrible idea, pointed out the dangers and unknowns . . . . _All_ the things Ed would have said to me, or texted to me if I’d spilled my guts to him the way I have in the past.

But against all those true, good, and honest points I also had the reality of my own situation, and also the emotional crutch of being raised by Russians.

My point is, I knew I was getting into murky waters by falling for an international fugitive sixty-five years older than I was, but my track record with guys had never been much good anyway. I’d had a total of three boyfriends, one of whom was in jail for burglarizing his workplace (tried to sell the industrial mixer on Ebay); one of whom had been married and carrying on with two other women; and one who found the love of his life at the restaurant where we were both working. The last one, Marco, had been a sweetie, too, but the better woman won in _that_ scenario, sigh.

So, not very successful in the romance department. It didn’t bug me much, but after being in someone else’s personal space most of the evening, it was harder to stay objective. We drove away from the fair around nine, and on the way back to the cabin, I thought about what to say to James. By tomorrow we’d have to figure out a real plan of action and I suspected _his_ choice would be to walk away from me and head out somewhere remote.

And I wasn’t sure that was such a bad idea—at least for him. For me, it would suck. So I was turning that around in my head, along with guilt/sorrow about Uncle Mischa, simmering panic about who it was exactly from the government who might be wanting to talk to me when we pulled up to the cabin. The moon was just past full, putting a beautiful silver haze on the pine needles underfoot, and dappling the waters of Great Sacandaga where it peeked between the trees.

Gorgeous night, really. I climbed out of the car and knew I wasn’t ready to go into the cabin just yet, so I headed for the dock. Behind me came James, very nearly dead quiet, but close enough to sense. When we reached the little beach I climbed up the steps, walked the short length of the dock and sat on the end, snickering at the Otis Redding in my head. A few seconds later I felt James sit next to me, and his boots were nearly touching the water because his legs were so much longer than mine. I took in a deep breath.

“Tomorrow is going to suck,” I murmured.

He looked perplexed, and immediately I felt bad for making him feel bad, so I added, “sorry, it’s just that today was really nice. Even though we’re fugitives and my uncle’s dead, it’s been a surprisingly decent day.”

James laughed very softly, and that gave me a little jolt of courage to keep going. 

“Look, we haven’t talked much about plans, and right now really isn’t the time to do that, but for tonight, I just . . . I don’t want to be . . . .”

“Alone,” he finished for me, his voice a little strangled.

I shot a sidelong look at him. “Yeah.”

Silence. God, aching loooooong humiliating silence, and I started to inwardly curse myself in English and Russian for being such a needy, awkward idiot when James drew in a sharp breath and let it out again, his words jumbling out in skewed Russian.

_”I don’t want to be alone either, but I don’t . . . I can’t promise you anything. I’m . . . out of practice.”_

_”Me too,”_ I replied, _”maybe we can coach each other,”_ and felt his metal arm slide around me. I leaned against him, getting used to the feeling, and we sat like that for a while, both of us self-conscious and me on the verge of giggling because of it.

Finally I lifted my head from his shoulder and turned to him. “Can I kiss you?”

He gave a little groan, hungry and terrified at the same time, and ever so gently let his mouth drift down to mine.

Oh yeah. Oh yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah, it was pretty clear pretty fast that despite the many decades my man James knew how to kiss. Soft and hot and slow, just the tiniest tease of tongue against the seam of my lips.

I whimpered, completely at the mercy of my hormones now, and kissed him back while savoring the easy pleasure of what he tasted like, which was corndogs, testosterone, and lust. We pulled apart for a moment, mostly to re-align ourselves and then launched into another kiss, this one not quite so, um, civilized.

Who am I kidding? We were both pretty much on the same page of horny, so making out on the dock went from upright and romantic in the moonlight to horizontal and potentially raunchy after a while. I make no excuses; James smelled and tasted wonderful; the combination of his kisses and touches were ratcheting up my desire to get laid into the ‘inevitable’ territory.

We needed to get off of the dock though—I was getting splinters in my back, and while the night was romantic and all, a degree of comfort and privacy would help a lot. So I told him, “Take this inside?” and he agreed, pulling me up but keeping me close as we sort of lurched and kissed our way back up to the cabin. This was an impressive feat by the way since the lights were off and the pines were blocking the moonlight. Still the two of us managed not only to get inside, but also onto the nearest of the twin beds of the sleeping porch, dropping onto it and making the rusty springs squeal.

Now I know there are all kinds of sex—angry sex and silly sex and ‘we’re soo drunk so this is a good idea’ sex—and yeah, I’ve indulged in a choice number of them, but what happened with James was . . . unique. For one thing, we didn’t really talk much. At least, not with words; it was more of a stroke and look sort of deal. Lots of sighs and groans and little growls.

And touching! Both of us got a lot of tactility going because I wanted, _needed_ to get to know that cleft in his chin, and the hollow of his throat, and the hard long muscles of his ribcage. It’s funny too, that I started kissing the side of his neck and when I reached the point where his flesh ended and the overlapping plates of his metal arm began at the shoulder, I just kept going, right over the steel. I didn’t care, it didn’t make a difference to me, but when I did it, James gave a hard chuff and arched his head back.

There were tears.

Do you _know_ what tears _do_ to a woman when making love? A Russian woman? Mmmmmmmmm, oh powerful stuff.

So we’d built ourselves up into a wet writhing frenzy, smearing our sweat and slickness when I suddenly remembered I didn’t have any birth control, and I was about to say something when James leaned over the side of the bed and came back up with a little square packet in his white teeth. He tossed his long hair back, grinning around the thing and I snatched it out of his mouth, laughing a little myself. It was hard to concentrate because was he kneeling between my thighs, his hands tugging my underwear down even as I tried to tear open the condom.

“ _How?_ ” I chuffed, finally getting the wrapping off.

“Standard issue. Use them to keep rifle muzzles dry,” he rasped, bending to kiss along the leg hole of my panties. God I nearly dropped the condom because not only was James being a total tease, but also, it meant there was quite possibly a gun under my bed. Then he managed to get his tongue under the elastic and I decided I had better things to concentrate on than weaponry, ohhh yes.

I got him suited up, which wasn’t easy because he was as impatient as I was, and pretty um, impressive. Not that I’ve seen a lot of khuy in my time, but let’s just say the Winter Soldier was packing some extremely girth-solid weaponry, and once he sank that cannon into me I pret-ty much came like a screaming banshee. Rough and fast, clawing and very unrestrained . . . that would be me, all right? It’s embarrassing to admit in the light of day, but at night, I can be a bit of a hellcat. At least on the first go-round. 

Luckily James was made of sterner stuff—wonderfully so—and managed to hang on through my second orgasm before finally succumbing to his own in a mighty big way, his groans and thrusts almost drowning out the squeaky bedsprings. Almost. He collapsed on me and I let him, being too boneless to care.

“Mmmmm, thank you,” I told him as I wrapped my arms around his damp torso.

“You’re welcome,” James sighed, moving to slip himself out of me to deal with the condom. When he came back from the bathroom I’d pushed the two beds together and thrown one blanket over them because I had no intention of sleeping alone tonight. And no, I didn’t look under either one of them.

He climbed in, curled around me and was out before I’d even tucked the blanket around us.


	5. Chapter 5

I got up around six to make breakfast; something substantial, since we’d burned a lot of calories overnight. After scaring myself in the mirror, jumping in the shower to wash off my old makeup and treat my cut lip, I was out and at the stove, working away, feeling damned good about life. Getting laid and cooking pretty much fill up my happiness quota, so I was bouncing around in denim skirt and baby tee, working on French toast and broiled melon slices wrapped in bacon, making enough to feed an army . . .

What a coincidence.

James had gotten up—I knew he had—but when I went to let him know breakfast was ready, he wasn’t in the cabin. I checked the bathroom and living room and sleeping porch. Feeling a little panicky, I stepped out the back door to look down towards the dock, wondering if he’d gone to do some post-coital brooding. 

Nobody was on the dock, and by now I wondered if the Taurus was still here when I hear his voice coming from over my head. “Someone’s coming.” 

I stepped out, and there he was, lying on the roof and staring out from behind the stove stack. I turned my stare from James towards the direction he was looking, which was up the road to the gravel turn off, but I couldn’t see anything. Nervous now, I tried to keep my voice low. “Who are they? Do I need to um, run?”

“Not Hydra,” James told me, his voice flat. “They’d disguise themselves as forest rangers or postal workers.”

“Great, so they could still be the feds.”

“They’re in . . .” James hesitated, “a Corolla.”

I laughed; I couldn’t help it. Somehow I couldn’t picture sleek Federal agents climbing out of something as mundane as that. James shot me a look and I stopped though. Clearly he still considered the unknown car to be a threat, so I called up to him. “I repeat, what should I do?”

“When they come to the door, answer it,” he instructed. “I’ll take it from there.”

“Ooookay,” I mumbled and headed back in, setting the food on the table just to keep myself busy. I had no idea who was coming but with James clearly three moves ahead of whoever it was . . . I thought we might have a fighting chance. Gradually I heard a car engine getting louder, and when I peeked out the window sure enough, a wine-colored Corolla pulled up behind the Taurus. Nobody got out for a few minutes and it was hard to see, but I could make out two people in the car. Looked like two men.

I waited, getting more and more nervous, and by the time I heard footsteps on the porch I was almost at the door myself. They knocked, and I pulled the door open. “Yes?”

Whoa. They weren’t expecting me, I guess, and certainly not that fast. Two guys in casual clothes, one black, and one very tall and blonde . . . I blinked, recognizing his face from the computer the previous day. 

“Miss . . . Zherdev?” he asked, politely. I could tell he was looking at my cut lip, and I hoped I wasn’t blushing.

“Who wants to know?” I answered, although I knew perfectly _well_ who wanted to know. Steve Rogers of the Howling Commandos wanted to know. Steve ‘Captain America’ Rogers, who for the record really IS as intimidating as he looks. I swallowed hard.

“Miss Zherdev, my name is Steve Rogers and this is Sam Wilson,” he replied, still being courteous. “We’re here looking for . . . someone, and I think you know who.”

Shit! I froze for a moment, and then took a breath. “I guess you’d better come inside,” I told them, and let them in. They followed me but I didn’t head for the living room. Instead, I went into the kitchen, and I could tell they weren’t expecting that. While they filed in I pulled out the French toast from the oven where I’d been keeping it warm, and set out the dish piled with the grilled melon. Everything smelled great, and I could see that Sam Wilson was hungry, because he was looking over everything appreciatively. Steve Rogers was much more focused because while he noticed the food, he didn’t linger on it. “Miss?”

“Sit down.”

That wasn’t from me. James stood in the doorway of the kitchen, perfectly poised, a knife in each hand. MY knives in fact; I recognized my Misono blades and whimpered.

Naturally our guests thought I was whimpering for another reason, so I had to clear my throat. _”Seriously? My **good** knives? Where are **your** knives?”_ I tried to whisper.

James flicked an annoyed glance at me and I fought not to roll my eyes. Misono blades are damned expensive, and they’re made for one purpose only—preparing food. If he ended up dulling them in some stupid show of force I was going to be extremely pissed off.

“Bucky,” Steve murmured, and things got serious again. James took a deep breath, and deliberately set the knives down on the table.

“Sit,” he repeated, and did so himself.

Everyone did, but it was incredibly tense. I dropped into the vinyl chair closest to the stove, half-expecting to have dive under the table and I could see Sam across from me looked sort of the same way. James pointed with his dimpled chin. “Eat. We’ll . . . talk, but we eat, too.”

Okay that was better. I unclenched a bit and began to hand around plates. For a moment Steve looked as if he was going to pass, but he forked up a single slice of toast onto his plate with great reluctance. Sam on the other hand had no problem with taking two pieces and I beamed at him. He beamed right back, and helped himself to the melon slices, practically humming under his breath.

I liked him.

I served myself one of the pieces of toast and shot a look at James, who was in a staring contest with the man across the table from him, the two of them not eating.

“Bucky . . .” Steve began again, and this time James gave a slow nod.

“Steve. I know that’s your name, but I don’t know you. Sorry, but you’re . . . a stranger.”

Ouch. Steve’s face fell like a soufflé, and I felt bad for him. Even Sam winced, but James went on thoughtfully. “I know _a_ Steve. I have . . . shadows of good memories. But he’s . . . smaller, scrappier. Great guy but . . . a little bit of a punk.”

A flicker of a smile on Steve’s mouth, but it didn’t reach his eyes, which were still a little hurt. “Some people _still_ think I’m a punk.”

“Not at your size,” James told him, and took a bite of French toast. I passed the orange juice and reminded myself to stay quiet, even though I wanted to ask questions. 

“I know _now_ . . . that you’re not my enemy,” James went on after he’d swallowed. “And things are starting to surface for me. Memories I guess, things too deep to be conditioned out of me, but it’s slow. Painful.”

“I can help. I _want_ to help,” Steve told him, and the tone was so full of emotion that I looked away. It was painful to witness this, and when I caught Sam’s sympathetic look across the table I knew I wasn’t alone.

“I know . . . Steve. But if you’re here then Hydra won’t be too far behind, and I am not going to let them _ever_ take me again,” James growled. “Whether or not I remember who I was, or who _you_ were or any of the _rest_ of my disappeared life, I have to face that first. So you’re going to do me a favor and take Melvin with you.”

“Who’s Melvin?” Sam wanted to know, and I rubbed my face in my hands.

“I’m _not_ leaving here without you, James,” I warned him.

“And who’s _James_?” Sam asked teasingly, looking as if he wanted a scorecard. He gave Steve an amused glance. 

Steve rolled his eyes. “James is Bucky’s real name, as you well know, and I’m guessing Melvin is--”

“Me. Nickname,” I mumbled. 

James gave me a little chagrined look, but turned back to Steve. “Mel,” he corrected. “She goes with you. I owe her that.”

“I’m right _here_ , don’t I get a say in anything?” I complained, pouring juice for myself.

“Um, I hate to have to tell you this, Mel, but your house in Brooklyn has been classified a threat to national security and seized by the government,” Sam muttered, looking apologetic. “They’d like to talk to you too, but . . .”

“Oh _shit_ on a mother-fucking shish-kebab! That’s just _fucking_ great,” I sighed. Steve winced, but Sam was snickering. 

James gave me a solemn look. “Mel, I appreciate what you’ve done for me—”

Oh _that_ burned me. We’d been screwing each other’s brains out not four hours earlier and now I was being dumped. I glared at him. _”Oh I bet you are! So it’s thanks for the food and fucking, but now it’s time to hit the road because I’m a poor emotional wreck who can’t handle commitment right now? Well fuck you, James! I lost my family, my home, my job and probably my future freedom and you don’t see ME pushing you away!”_

_”Mel stop it!”_ he snapped back at me. _”It’s not like that! Damn it, things are going to get very dangerous and I don’t want to lose you!”_

“Um, guys,” Steve tried to interrupt around our Russian. “Listen, I know you’re both pretty upset . . .”

I ignored him. James ignored him. We glared at each other like a couple of angry cats and I kept telling myself I wasn’t going to cry. 

“Soooo how did you two crazy kids meet, anyway?” Sam asked, and it was enough to sort of break the tension. I looked at him, but it was James who spoke up.

“She was in the . . . safe house. She was my designated donor.”

“Donor?” Sam asked, and Steve who answered this time.

“According to the files Nat gave me, each safe house had a donor attached to it. Someone with the same blood and marrow type as Bucky, waiting to donate if it was needed,” he said slowly. I felt the skin prickle across my scalp as I remembered Gloria’s direct comments and some of the more oblique ones from my family. I looked at James, who slowly nodded.

“Oh this gets better and better,” I groused. “So basically I’ve been what, cultivated from birth just to keep _you_ alive, without any choice in the matter? This Hydra group sucks donkey dicks, they really do. No wonder Uncle Mischa was so bitter.”

“The _Nazis_ thought they were too extreme; that ought to tell you something,” James pointed out tiredly. “And my _point_ is that they are going to try to collect you _too_ , sweetheart. Just like me, they consider you a commodity. A piece of property.”

Sam was shaking his head, and Steve looked pretty grim. I blinked back the sting of tears because all of a sudden honest-to-god terror was setting in. It was all too damned much, and I knew I was on the verge of a blubbery breakdown if I didn’t keep it together, so I took another bite of toast and chewed it with more force than necessary.

“Bucky, we want to help,” Steve said. “Look, you may not remember me fully, but I’m still your friend, I’ll always _be_ your friend but the two of you aren’t safe here. You’re right; if _I_ can find you, so can they. We need to go, _now._ ”

“Where’s safe?” James demanded in a low voice. “Hydra’s _every_ where.”

“Not everywhere,” Steve assured us, although I really wanted his voice to be more confident. “We’ll take you to the Tower; Stark’s security is the best there is at the moment, and it’s . . . apolitical.”

“The Avengers Tower? That huge place in lower Manhattan?” I broke in, but at that moment we all heard the sound of an outboard motor getting louder.


	6. Chapter 6

For a second everyone froze, and then Steve started speaking. “Sam, get them to the car, I’ll hold them off.”

“Wait, wait,” I spluttered. “God, it could simply be someone who’s lost. It happens sometimes, especially with tourists on the lake.”

The minute I said it, three skeptical gazes pinned me to my chair and I felt my face get hot. James rose up and glanced through the window just as Steve did the same. Neither one of them said anything, so I got up to take a look too, and ended up feeling smug.

The little cabin cruiser heading for the dock was putt-putting along, and out on the front at the little railing was a granny with one of those golfing eyeshades and fancy Jackie Kennedy sunglasses. From where I was I could see she had on a fanny pack and topsiders too—typical weekend boater for Great Sacandaga, probably looking for our one tourist attraction—namely the underwater town. When the government built the dam back in the Thirties, the re-routed water filled up the valley and people abandoned the town down there. On a clear day you can see the old train station and everything, but since there isn’t a buoy to mark it the place is hard to find, especially for visitors.

I gave a sigh. “False alarm. I’ll go re-direct them. In the meantime, either finish the toast, or I’ll throw it away.”

“Now _that_ would be a crime,” I heard Sam murmur, and I grinned.

“I’ll go with you,” Steve offered, shooting a look at James. “Just in case.”

I saw James nod, so I headed out with Captain America at my heels into the thin sunshine of the day. Once we were clear of the house I spoke up. “Is he going to be safe? With you?”

“Safe as I can make it,” Steve replied, reaching to pull branches away from his face. “Right now it’s hard to make promises, but he’s got a better chance with me than with Hydra.”

“Okay then,” I sighed. “Just . . . do what you can. I know that’s a hell of a lot more than _I_ can.”

We were at the foot of the dock when the cruiser edged over to it and the little old lady leaned on the rail, smiling at us for a moment before hopping off the boat and giving a wave to whomever it was driving it. “Back in a sec, Morty,” she called in a husky voice before turning to us. “Hi there! I know this is private property, but I’m looking for somebody.”

“Uh, nobody here but us,” I managed through my teeth. The lady in front of us barely came up to my shoulder and she had on some massive bracelets that probably would have taken her straight to the bottom of the lake if she ever fell in.

“Oh I kind of doubt that,” she replied, and looked at Steve, smiling. “Harriet Van Gundy, Aegis, New York, Captain. We’ve got transport and haven for you and your friends.”

“Aegis?” Steve echoed, and I saw him relax a little. Believe me, when shoulders as big as _his_ relax, you notice. “Who notified you?”

“The colonel himself, before he, uhh, _died_ ,” Ms Van Gundy lifted her sunglasses and winked at us. “All the mid-Atlantic divisions are on alert to assist. Morty and I got the call last night once you were on the move, so here we are, honey.”

“Wait, what?” That was me, looking at her like the woman had grown another head. “What’s Aegis, and who ARE you?”

Steve spoke up even as he looked around the horizon of the lake. “Aegis is a sort of . . . home guard, I guess. Retired military and S.H.I.E.L.D. agents who volunteer their services in an unofficial capacity.” He turned to look at the woman and snapped out, “What is Colonel Fury’s middle name?”

“On the official paperwork it’s Joseph, but his mother always swore it was actually Luther,” The woman replied without missing a beat. “Little snot changed it; kids—what can you do, right? Now we don’t have a lot of time, Captain.”

“Agreed,” he grinned and looked at me. “She’s one of ours.”

“Uh, okay,” I managed. The woman took one of my hands and pumped it vigorously.

“Harriet Van Grundy, sweetie, and that’s my boyfriend Morty back there driving the boat.”

“Melora Zherdev,” I replied automatically while Steve looped an arm around each of our shoulders and steered us both up the dock. I noticed Harriet grinning at that, and who could blame her? Captain America was hunky, if you liked that in a guy. Me, I preferred them a little leaner and meaner, *cough, cough.*

“If Fury activated Aegis, who’s calling the shots?” Steve wanted to know. We were going up the hill to the cabin now, and I was taking the lead.

“Phil mostly,” Harriet replied, huffing a little as she climbed. “Although we’re a pretty self-contained bunch. I need a head count, Captain, so we know how many plates to put on the dinner table.”

I got to the top of the hill right when the first muffled shots rang out. Luckily I got a breath in before Steve not-so-gently pushed me to the ground along with Harriet, and then sprinted to the car. For a moment I thought he was running away, but he grabbed his shield out of the back seat and turned, using it to deflect a smoke bomb lobbed at him.

“Ohhh _crap,_ ” Harriet sighed, and got up. “Okay, stay down, sweetie. How many in the cabin?”

“Two,” I told her, caught between wanting to stay on the ground or just run away. Sure I’ve got a brown belt in Judo, but my survival instinct was telling me to get the hell out of there and only the thought of James was keeping me where I was. I wondered what had happened, and how whoever it was had shown up even as Harriet trotted up to the back porch.

“Hey!” I called, alarmed. I’d already seen one old person killed recently and I wasn’t interested in seeing it happen again, so I started to get up. 

Meanwhile Steve was like, combat ballet. Hitting, spinning, kicking—God, it was elegant and hella efficient. The men coming at him weren’t in uniforms; they were all in casual clothing, looking like tourists and locals. Hell, they could have been tourists and locals for all I could tell.

He caught sight of Harriet and just nodded; either he had a lot of faith in her, or figured inside was safer. I went after her because I wasn’t about to stay alone out there.

I nearly ran into her back as she popped inside, calling out, “Harriet Van Grundy, Aegis!”

Sam was there, keeping low in the kitchen and holding one of my Misono knives. He looked at Harriet, did a sort of double-take, and then looked at me.

I shrugged. “Sort of S.H.I.E.L.D. one point oh,” was the best I could do. “Steve says she’s legit.”

Harriet looked towards the kitchen window just as a smoke grenade came through. She caught it—caught it!—and threw it back out in a little ballsy underhand move. “Assholes,” she muttered, and looked at Sam. “Steve’s out there between this place and your vehicle, so you’re probably not going to get out that way. Boat’s down at the dock, honey. Where’s your fourth?”

Both Sam and I sort of goggled at her, but eventually he pointed up. “Roof,” he muttered. “Took the other knife and may have other weapons.” To me he whispered, “I think my capacity to be surprised is about used _up_ today.”

“Amen,” I told him and scowled at my knife in his hands. He looked a little guilty, but a couple more shots distracted us and I shivered.

“Stay down,” Sam told me and I climbed under the kitchen table because while I’m not crazy about being ordered around, I’m also smart enough to stay out of the fighting. Meanwhile Harriet took off one of her bracelets and was pulling some of the heavy beads off of it. “Here,” she handed a couple to Sam and a few to me. “Squeeze and throw; it gives enough of an electric jolt to shock the bejesus out of anyone. Be careful though, honey.”

Sam grinned, stood, squeezed and heaved a bead through the window. I heard a sizzle, a yelp and a clatter; Sam flashed a thumbs-up at Harriet, who grinned back. 

“Her, I like,” he announced to me. “All right. I need to get something in the car. You two head to the boat.”

“No can _do,_ ” Harriet countered. “I’ve got a mandate to get all of you out, young man. I can cover you while you get your luggage if it’s necessary, but we all need to get to the dock.”

“Yes ma’am,” he replied, and darted out of kitchen. I looked at Harriet, who was humming a little.

“Where are we going?”

“Morty and I have a place down over near the west shore, near Mayfield,” she replied chattily, as if we weren’t in the middle of a gunfight. “You’ll be safe . . . once we get there. So I see the Captain and you; who else is here?”

“You met Sam,” I told her, “and the other one is . . . James.”

“Okay then four, that’s good. We could take more on the _Grumpy Roger_ but it’s not recommended. Sounds like the Captain is getting the upper hand now.”

Surreal. It was just . . . here I was chatting with this senior citizen while all around us good guys are fighting the bad guys and I just . . . sort of blinked at her. She patted my arm and smiled again.

“Takes some getting used to, I know. Oh, ‘scuse me--” She stood, whipped a couple of beads through the window and watched, nodding at the agonized yelps. “Honest to Pete, some people never learn. Okay, I think we have the all-clear now.”

Cautiously I slipped out from under the table just as James came into the kitchen. He stopped, stared, and held out my other Misono blade towards Harriet. “Who are you?”

“Harriet Van Grundy. I’m with Aegis, honey.” She didn’t tell him to put the knife down, or even look worried, although I saw she’d spotted his metallic hand. “Are you James?”

He didn’t answer, and then I heard Steve coming in, sounding a little bit winded. “Clear for the moment, but backups are going to be rolling. Harriet---” Steve paused and looked around the room. I gave a little blink. “It’s okay,” he told James. “She’s with us.”

Moment of trust here. I could tell James wasn’t sure about Harriet and wasn’t sure about whether to trust Steve on this, but it wasn’t a decision I could make for him. He’d have to choose and do it fast.

“How do you know?” James asked.

Harriet spoke up. “The Commando with the best hearing was Jim Morita. The one with the best sense of balance was Gabe Jones. Denier didn’t like traveling over water, and Dugan used to scrounge cigars out of every Hydra base you boys ever hit.”

I was watching James as she spoke; he swallowed hard once she was done, and nodded. Steve was grinning, and even Harriet looked pleased. “Creds established now? Can we go?”

No more delays. I glanced back and saw bodies lying on the pine needles around the front porch. I wondered if they were dead, and then pushed that thought away when I noticed the heavy-duty guns on the ground as well. Harriet herded us out, and called to Steve. “Where’s Sam?”

Steve pointed up, and I looked to the roof, wondering why he’d be there. Hell, _how_ he’d be there since the last time I’d seen him he’d been running for the Corolla.

Turned out I was looking the wrong way, and as his shadow passed over us, I got a look at Sam Wilson . . . flying. Metal wings, goggles—like something out of a comic book. Boy I was wrong when I thought I’d reached my limit of surprise. He swooped down and called to us. “Got three vehicles headed our way, Cap.”

“Do what you can to delay or sidetrack,” Steve called up to him. “No heroics.”

“Will do,” his grin said it all. “Miz Harriet, got a spare bracelet?”

“All yours,” She slipped her spare one off and handed it to Steve, who tossed it high enough for Sam to catch.

James was looking out over the water and pointed. “Speedboat on an intercept.”

“Oh Morty’s gonna _love_ that,” Harriet chuffed, and hurried us down to the dock. “Hustle people, hustle!”


	7. Chapter 7

We clattered down on the dock and climbed into the boat, piling onto the deck as quickly as we could. I bumped into the round little man handling the controls and he gave me a big denture-bright grin even as he watched Harriet.

“This all of them, Snookie?”

“Don’t _call_ me that when we’re working! No, we’ve got one airborne who’ll be spotting for us, Morty, and there’s an interceptor off the starboard bow. Gun it!”

“That’s my girl!” the man replied and added, “Hang on folks!” before he yanked the throttle hard. We shot away from the dock at a speed that made my French Toast lurch in my gut, and I stumbled until James caught me by the waist and pulled me in. God, the front end of the cruiser left the water and we were off like a Tokyo bullet train!

In the meantime, Harriet was digging around in one of the locker seats, fishing out what looked like shotguns. I shook my head but both Steve and James took one from her.

“Beanbag rounds,” she called over the thrum of the engine under us. “We’re _de_ fense not _off_ ense.”

James made a face, but Steve nodded and both of them loaded the shells in. I could see the other boat heading our way, looking like it was going to ram us. Our captain—Morty—was grinning. He had a bushy grey mustache, a golf cap and one of the loudest Hawaiian shirts I’d ever seen. “Yutzes. Think they’re gonna win at this game of Chicken? I don’t _think_ so!”

The cabin cruiser lurched and I hung onto the rail, starting to numb out a bit now. So much going on, so damned much and so _fast_. Last night had been just James and me in our own little moment and now . . .

A gunshot made me jump; I looked and James was rock-steady, smoke coming out of the barrels of his gun. Then Steve fired as James re-loaded. Harriet was talking into what looked like a walkie-talkie so I looked towards where the other boat was coming towards us. A couple of guys bobbing were in the water; the ones I guess James shot, and two others were lying up on the roof of their cabin firing back. I was pretty sure _their_ rounds were live ammo.

Our boat made a quick lurch to the left, swinging around hard enough to make me slide along the rail. I know Steve fired because I got some of the smoke in my face. “Hang on people!” Morty yelled over the engine, and then the boat hit yet a higher speed, making me slide down the length of one of the padded bench lockers and hang on for dear life.

Morty took us on a hell of a ride, weaving around buoys and passing so close to the shoreline that I could see some of the cabins between the trees. To his credit he seemed to be having the time of his life, and if it wasn’t for people shooting at us I might have enjoyed it. But once we cut out across the vast expanse of the lake I didn’t think we had much of a chance. Our boat was fast, but theirs was too, and they were pissed.

As we got closer to the other side, I saw that Morty was heading for one of the little outcrop islands that dotted the lake. You know the kind—little blobby places barely big enough to hold a few pine trees on them. This one was a tad larger than most, but still nothing that was capable of sustaining a house or cabin. I was going to ask him what he thought he was doing when he pulled HARD to the left and circled around it, using the little place to block us from view of our chasers. “Open the pod bay doors, Hal!” he shouted to Harriet, who seemed to know what the hell he was talking about because she repeated it into the walkie-talkie. I looked back; Sam was back behind us, but coming up fast, so I guess the cars at the cabin had been taken care of.

Then, we fell. 

If you’ve ever been on Pirates of the Caribbean at Disneyland you’ll know exactly what the experience was like. One minute we were above the water and the next, we were sliding doooown some wet, dark boat ramp, getting hella wet. I screamed a little, I know I did and I am not about to apologize for it either. I mean shit! Average ordinary people do NOT expect secret-ass tunnels to open up under them, especially in the middle of lakes in upstate New York!

At least, I don’t.

Morty was braying like a hyena, and Harriet was chuckling too, mostly because Steve and James were sort of goggling open-mouthed as our cruiser slid down the ramp to splash into an underground marina and glide over to a dock at the far end. There were lights overhead along the metal dome and the whole thing felt like an airplane hangar that had been sunk underground, complete with warehouses.

“Welcome to the Grotto, folks! I hope you . . .” Morty didn’t get to finish because we all heard thumping and cursing sounds coming across the water. I raised my head to see Sam tumbling down the boat ramp, his wings half-folded as he toppled down and did a spectacular belly-flop into the water. 

Steve dove over the side and helped bring him in, the two of them making it over to the dock after a few anxious minutes. I caught the look of exasperation on Sam’s face as he climbed up the ladder and gingerly undid his wing pack.

“If I hadn’t been watching you I’d have missed it,” he was telling Steve in little gasps. “Dove in right after your boat, hoping like hell I didn’t crash into your stern in the dark.”

“Are you okay?” I called to him and he waved a hand, nodding.

“I’m good. So . . . where are we?”

Morty spoke up again, helping us out of the cruiser. “This is the Grotto. Used to be a S.H.I.E.L.D. compound but since it’s off the beaten track and underwater, they handed it over to Aegis about thirty years ago. Never actually had to use it for official business; you’re our first customers!”

I slid over to James, looking him over. He had the shotgun tucked under one arm and was staring around the place. I wondered if he was memorizing it; looking for exits and weak points, so I cleared my throat to get his attention. “Hey.”

He looked at me and managed a small smile. “That was . . . fun.”

“Oh yeah, everything but the bullets.”

James looked at Steve. “The . . . Cyclone.”

It was the first time I’d seen Steve smile. He has a nice one, really, dimpled and wide. “Yeah. That first drop.”

And slowly, James nodded. It made me want to grin, seeing that, hearing that. If he remembered the Coney Island Cyclone, then maybe other things would come back too. Clearly Steve believed, and man, if Captain America believed it could happen, then maybe it could. James handed back the shotgun and helped me out of the boat, his grip gentle on me. Felt nice.

“Sooooo, let me give you all the skinny,” Harriet began as she circled around us like a concerned terrier and began leading us off the dock. “Aegis works with S.H.I.E.L.D. as sort of an auxiliary, but without direct supervision. We’re the welcome wagon, the cavalry, Red Cross and witness protection all in one, sort of. Strictly for the US of A, on a volunteer basis. Right now you folks are our guests for as long as you want to be, and when you need to get going, we’ll get you to a safe starting point. Right now I think some of you need to get checked over by Doctor Goldie, and then after that maybe some debriefing and rest, am I right?”

“Could use some Tylenol,” Sam admitted. I could see some scrapes along his forearm and I’m sure his gut was still aching from that buster against the water. 

Harriet spoke into her walkie-talkie. “Gotta customer for you, Goldie. Bumps and bruises mostly. Okay honey, this way.” That last was to Sam, and we watched Harriet lead him towards a building on the left. 

Morty looked at the three of us and gave a chuckle. “Okay then, the rest of you, let’s go grab some coffee and a nosh on our way to the talk.” He took his cap off, rubbed his bald head and replaced his hat before waving for us to follow him. I looked at Steve and James, who both shrugged and followed Morty.

“Lead on,” Steve sighed. I kept close to James and we made our way over a paved stone floor that looked as if it had been a cave once. On impulse, I called out to our guide. 

“Hey Morty, was this part of the underwater town?”

“Heh, smart cookie! Harriet had you pegged as a bright one. Yeah, our Grotto here wasn’t exactly built from scratch. Mother Nature provided the cave, and when the residents of Concord started moving out in the Thirties, the US Navy took an interest in the place. OSS and later S.H.I.E.L.D. put money and manpower into it as a possible civil defense center but that panned out too. Right now we make enough to keep the lights on by tracking satellites.”

“Satellites?” I asked.

“Yeah yeah—“ He waggled a hand back and forth. “Weather ones, cell phone ones, even keep an eye on one of the old NRO’s jobs up there. Somebody’s gotta do it, right? Anyway, we’ve got the time.” Morty trotted up a metal ramp and pulled open a sliding door; I got a whiff of slightly burnt coffee as I realized it was a commercial kitchen. Inside, I gave it the once over and shook my head—this place needed a serious upgrade.

“The Waldorf it’s not, but the java’s okay,” Morty grumbled at my expression. Steve and James were at the urn, filling up as I noted the tray of bagels and muffins next to it. They did not pass my freshness test, and I wondered if anyone here would be upset if I made a few of my own later. The place looked big enough to feed a few dozen, and yet we were the only ones in it. Morty topped off his cup with cream and led us through the kitchen into a sort of maze of hallways all done in early shipping container. We ended up in a conference room around a genuine dining room table. There were some computer screens on the walls and a wireless keyboard at the head of the table, but other than that, the rest of the room looked like it was straight out of someone’s house.

I sat and James sat next to me; Steve went to the other side of Morty, facing us.

Morty sat in front of the keyboard, cracked his knuckles and began typing. “Okay then, let’s talk. I’m Morty Talbot, former Marine, and I drove a cab for thirty years in the Big Apple. One day a large, mean one-eyed fare gets in and asks me if I can make it from lower Manhattan to Ward’s Island in an hour. I tell him I can do it in under forty minutes and he tells me to put my money where my mouth is. Naturally I do. Thirty six minutes to be precise, thank you very much. I get a call two days later asking me if I’d like to sign on to an exclusive organization that needs my driving skills. I meet Harriet, and the rest is history, yeah?”

“Sounds like something Fury would do,” Steve murmured. I noticed he wasn’t drinking the coffee.

“Yep. Anyway, Harriet and I were told to keep an eye on the east side of the lake. We got the cabin co-ordinates from Phil, and we’ve been watching ever since, waiting for you—” Morty pointed at Steve, “and your buddy to show up. We were holding back, but once we knew you two were being followed, well, we had to act.”

I felt the heat run up the sides of my face. “You’ve been . . . _watching_ us?” I didn’t dare look at James. I didn’t dare.

Morty squirmed a little, but he was smirking a tiny bit too. “Yeah well not in the cabin, just outside . . . and Harriet turned off the camera last night after it was clear you two needed, ah, privacy.”

God, I didn’t think my cheeks could get any hotter, and the scandalized look on Steve’s face as he turned to stare at James . . . 

But he was fighting a little grin, too, and as for James, he was doing his best to look innocent and not actually pulling it off. Thank God I wasn’t the only one going pink at the moment.

“Bucky, Bucky, Bucky,” Steve mumbled, running a hand over his face.

James shot him this look—serious even through his blush. “Not open to discussion,” he replied, and looked to Morty, who cleared his throat.

“So. Hydra knew that you went to the Brooklyn safe house; they knew that you put their people there out of commission and that both you and your donor were missing. How did _you_ figure out where to go, Captain?”

Steve looked away from James and cleared his throat. “Vacation photos on the mantelpiece. I had Stark’s AI look for land or rental records under the last name of Zherdev and got the address here at the lake.”

“Nice catch,” Morty nodded. “Put you ahead of those Hydra bastards by a few hours, anyway.”

“So now what?” Steve wanted to know.

“Now, we lay low,” came the reply. “We’re small potatoes here, Captain, and none of us are gonna do anything without input from Phil or maybe Maria. In the meantime we got Netflix, free of charge, and untraceable internet.”


	8. Chapter 8

I was going to say something but we all heard footsteps, and looked to the door. Sam came in, his elbow bandaged, followed by Harriet, and a reed-thin little old lady with a long grey braid coiled in a coronet and glasses so thick they magnified her eyes. She peered around at us and smiled, her hands in the pockets of her doctor’s smock. “Oh dear, that coffee’s going to kill you,” she announced in a sweet little voice. “Morty makes it strong enough to dissolve concrete.”

“It’s ex-presso!” Morty sniped back. “Very big downtown.”

“It’s sludge,” the doctor shot back, and laughed. “But it’s _your_ sludge and I’m not going to change you now. I’m Doctor Goldie.”

“Let me guess---pediatrician?” Steve asked. I noticed that Sam had a lollipop stick hanging out of the corner of his grin.

“Yep, although I started as a nurse in Vietnam,” she replied, coming to sit at the foot of the table. “Sam here had a few boo-boos but he’s fine now.”

I snickered, as did Steve. James didn’t, though, and I could see him tense a little. “I will _not_ let you examine me,” he announced, low and firm. Everyone froze. I wanted to slip my hand in his, but had to settle for pressing up against his shoulder. His metal shoulder.

“Fair enough,” Doctor Goldie nodded easily. She was completely relaxed, leaning back and comfortable. “If you’re not hurting or in pain, then I don’t need to. You’ve got a right to your privacy.”

For a moment James held her gaze and I know I wasn’t the only one holding my breath. He blinked, finally, and relaxed a little. Doctor Goldie gave a nod to show she was serious, and looked at me. “Okay then, good. We are approximately thirty feet under water in a pressurized atmosphere so you make have plugged ears for a while. If nobody needs patching up then _I’m_ going back to my office and see if I can finish quilting the bedspread I’m working on. Any questions?”

“How long?” James asked. “How long will we be here?”

Harriet cocked her head. Now that she had her sunglasses off, she looked less comical and more motherly. “Honey, that’s a tough call. Right now there’s a Hydra team scouring the lake and stomping all over that little island we passed, and another one going through the cabin, but they’re short-handed and not exactly at the top of their game. You’ve led them on a damned good chase, and they can’t afford to be seen publically looking for you, so by my conservative estimate, give it two days at the very least. I’d love to throw them a red herring, maybe some sort of MacGuffin to chase if we could pull it off.”

“None of us have the physique of these three,” Morty pointed out ruefully. “And I don’t know about you, but I could use a nap.”

“That . . . sounds good to me too,” I admitted in a low voice. Nobody disagreed; although I could tell Steve and Sam didn’t look like they’d be resting anytime soon.

“Relaxing is good,” Doctor Goldie agreed. “You’re on the down side of an adrenaline rush, folks, so give yourselves time to settle for a bit. The only people who know we’re here are on a need to know basis.” Saying that she got up and headed out again, humming to herself. I looked at everyone at the table and ended up looking at James, who was still as a statue.

“Okay then,” I sighed, and let Harriet show me where I could rest.

But I couldn’t, much. The room was sort of a standard motel-looking number with everything in sort of slate blue shades. The metal walls made me feel like I was in a submarine, and I was aware of tons of water all around me. I took off my shoes and stretched out on the bed, trying to ignore the musty scent as I crawled under the bedspread. 

Too much to think about, you know? Everything from what had just happened to what was _going_ to happen kept bouncing around in my brain like a loose marble in a sink, clattering my thoughts and leaving me feeling jarred. For the next two hours I shifted around, and finally rolled over on my side and curled up around one of the heavy pillows to smother my face, trying not to cry. I didn’t—much. Just a few tears this time because feeling sorry for myself isn’t really my thing. I know about delayed stress though, so I wasn’t going to beat myself up for it either. Part of being human.

It didn’t help though, that I also felt . . . superfluous. I mean come on—I wasn’t in the military, I wasn’t an agent, or a spy or anyone important in this situation. I was just . . . baggage. A chef without a kitchen or a even a job, someone who happened to be along for the ride. Not that I _wanted_ to be important, oh _hell_ no, not if it meant people around me got killed because of it. No, I guess what I wanted was for things to be normal again. Normal as in nobody hunting after me, or shooting around me or making me part of some Cold War scheme.

But I didn’t see how things would ever be normal again. Not with my status as a donor—unwitting or not—for James. I thought back to my childhood, and suddenly all the visits to Doctor Z took on a nasty significance, along with my parents’ monitoring of my health and safety. I’d been groomed all along, and from somewhere deep inside me a hard flare of hate scorched through my emotions. Hate for my family and what they never had the courage to tell me, hate for an organization that never cared for me as a person, and even stab of it for the one-armed head-case who’d opened my eyes to all of this. It wasn’t fair to turn what life I had upside down like this, you know?

I rolled over and nearly jumped because James had pulled up a chair and was sitting next to the bed, stock-still, watching me. _”Fucking Jesus on water-skis, what did I tell you about sneaking UP on me!”_

He turned those hound dog eyes of his on me now. “ _Not to do it,”_ James murmured. _”But it’s not my fault you had a pillow over your head.”_

Eh, he had me there, and irritated, I threw it at him; James batted the pillow away without taking his gaze from me. I stared back, _glared_ back at him. “ _What are you doing here?_ ”

He broke our stare-down and looked at the floor. “ _I can’t sleep._ ”

I was about to say something like it wasn’t my problem, or he could go get something for it from Doctor Goldie when he looked up again. “ _Last night, with you . . . That was the first time I’ve slept in years. When they used to put me in storage, they didn’t let me go to sleep before they did it. I was told to close my eyes, but I was awake **each time** the frost seared through me._ ”

I slowly sat up. “When _was_ the last time you slept, before last night?”

He shook his head, and it hit me that it wasn’t a matter of lost memory, but no memory. I patted the mattress next to me.

“So tell me about it,” I said quietly. 

James looked up to the ceiling and gave a low sigh, then moved to lie down next to me, pulling me into his arms. I moved close as I could, draping over him and didn’t say anything more, just waiting to hear him out. He felt good; solid and strong under me and I can’t deny that just being held was making me relax. I kept waiting, knowing that he’d probably start talking once he was comfortable.

He talked, slowly at first, with a lot of hesitation and sentences that trailed off, his voice husky sometimes and hard at other times. I heard about the fall, and his arm, God! And about being in and out of all sorts of operations. James kind of glossed over his training, but from the way his voice got tight I could tell Hydra was big on the negative reinforcement style, the bastards. The pattern was always the same, James said: shocked into consciousness, physical therapy and arm upgrades for a day or two, then briefing for the mission. Dropped near the target, eliminating the target, collected and taken to safe house for de-briefing, then fed and frozen again. 

“How many . . . .” I whispered, and he lifted his metal hand, waggling the fingers.

“How many times can you count these?” he replied tiredly. “Men mostly, women once in a while, and once . . . .” 

“James,” I murmured, wanting to spare him anymore stress.

He shuddered a little and rushed on, “once . . . You need to know this--I blew up a _school bus,_ Melvin. I . . . !” James shook with a sob and I wasn’t any too steady myself trying to tamp down the horror and sorrow that was overwhelming both of us. I clung to him, pressing my mouth close to his ear, tasting the tears rolling down the sides of his face.

“ _You_ didn’t do that. THEY did that. THEY used you as their weapon and judgment will be on THEIR heads for what they’ve done to you and their victims! You listen to _me_ , James Barnes— _none_ of those acts came from you! When the nail is driven in, nobody blames the hammer!”

For a long time we just hung onto each other. 

I felt so . . . needed. That sensation just washed through me, taking with it a lot of the doubt and unhappiness, so I let it, and kept James close. I didn’t _have_ to say anything, so I didn’t. I just touched him, stroked him soothingly and I can’t tell you how wonderful it was when he finally fell asleep. Seriously, to know that he was _able_ to do that in my arms . . . wow. I closed my eyes too, because deep emotion is just flat-out exhausting, and yeah, I drifted off too, into la-la land, feeling a glimmer of hope.

*** *** *** 

I woke up several hours later to discover that being used as a security blanket was nice, but not when I had full bladder. Carefully I untangled James’ grip and slipped out to the bathroom, taking care of business and noting that my hair needed a good brushing. Luckily there were supplies in the cabinet so I tidied up, feeling better for it. By my estimation it was probably about four in the afternoon and my stomach was growling enough to incline me towards the kitchen. When I stepped out though, James was sitting at the edge of the bed, looking in my direction uncertainly.

I walked over and stood between his knees, letting him slip his metal arm around my waist so he could nuzzle my stomach. “Feel better?”

He looked up and smiled that quirky smile of his, the one that showed his dimples and softened his expression. “And how. Thank you.”

It was easy to kiss the top of his head. “Me too. So. _I’m_ hungry, I’m sure _you’re_ hungry and there’s a good-sized kitchen I want to take a look at.”

My stomach growled at that moment, and his grin flashed out again. “Let’s go then.”

We stepped out into the empty hall and James took the lead, heading through the maze until we were back at the kitchen within a few minutes. I shot him a quick look, aware that he’d memorized the route out of habit, and he gave a shrug, and then went to lean against one wall, watching me.

I explored. I just want to say that I’m not a snob, and that I’ve been in a lot of kitchens, both personal and industrial, so I’ve had experience with the variety of layouts available. That _being_ said, the kitchen at the Grotto was in sorry, sorry shape. I found dust everywhere, mildew in too many places, and a storage plan that didn’t make sense. Whoever had last organized the place had done a piss-poor job, and I winced every time I opened a cabinet or drawer. James kept watching me and grew more alarmed at each muttered curse I uttered.

“Are you going to be okay?” he asked when I stifled a growl over a rack of rusty knives.

“I’m fine, but this place . . . it’s as if _mudaks_ put this stuff here!” I snapped. “ _Why_ are the measuring cups and bowls so far from the workstation island here? Where is the _sense_ in having the pots and pans across the kitchen in a cupboard instead of in the cabinets _right next_ to the damned stove?”

He said nothing, and I was aware that he was trying hard not to smile, so I threw a dishtowel at him. “Stop! If you want to eat, you’re going to help. Bring me the two packages of chicken from the refrigerator while I see what seasonings are here.”

James slunk off, but I knew he was shaking his head in amusement as I began my quest for salt. I found it, eventually, along with some ancient pepper and some mixed seasonings. Through my professional pain, I began to put together a meal, moving as best I could despite the horrible layout, feeling better as I started some rice simmering and did a quick marinade for the leg joints my assistant found.

He pulled up a stool and leaned his elbows on the workstation, watching me. “So you’re a cook,” he murmured.

“Bite your tongue,” I corrected, pointing a wooden spoon at him. “I am a chef de partie certified to work the rôtisseur, boucher and poissonier stations at any restaurant.” At his confused expression I clarified. “I can cut any meat and fish as well as roast and braise it. Sort of . . . specialized work.”

“Okay then,” James nodded, his bangs swinging a little. “So you’re a chef.”

“And don’t you forget it. Would you prefer tarts or a cobbler?” I stared at the canned peaches, wondering if there was any cinnamon around.

“Cobbler, if I get a vote,” came a reply. This was from Steve, who had wandered in and was watching as well. It made me a little self-conscious, but I took a breath and got on with things. That’s how it is with cooking—you don’t have time to spare for nervousness.

James nodded too, glancing at Steve.

“All right. One of you open these cans for me please, and I need someone else to get the big tub of flour down from the cabinet by the coffeemaker,” I ordered. It felt good to boss people around again and I grinned as the two of them did what I asked. I made Steve watch the rice, and had James help me roll out a quick dough, all the time directing them and keeping them moving. “Nice . . . I need to get the oven pre-heated, and Steve, if you can find any sugar that would be wonderful. James, a little thinner here on the edge. The dough needs to be uniform . . .”

“I haven’t been on the receiving end of this many orders since Colonel Phillips was in charge,” Steve muttered, and I caught James’ grin.

“I _heard_ that,” I shot back. “And anyone who has a problem helping doesn’t have to eat any of this meal.”

“So--is that communism or democracy?” James asked Steve, who gave a shrug.

“I think that’s the universal law of cooking. Sort of a benevolent dictatorship.”


	9. Chapter 9

Under my direction we got everything into the oven and ready to go within forty minutes. I was looking for a wine to go with it—old habits die hard—and found a lonely bottle of Riesling that I figured would at least make the effort.

Steve offered to go set the table, which was decent of him.

Morty came wandering in and caught me washing out his coffee maker. “Whaddah you _doing_?” he demanded. James was back to lounging against a wall, watching.

“Cleaning,” I informed him. “You’ve got a lot bitter oils staining your filtration system here and I don’t want you to die because you poisoned yourself.”

“I like my coffee bitter,” he grumbled, and then caught a scent of the chicken, his nose quivering. “Whoah, what’s that?”

“Coq au poivre et sel,” I told him. “Going to be ready in about an hour along with herbed rice and a peach cobbler for dessert.”

He looked at me, breathed in again, and sighed. “Okayfine. Do whatever you like to the coffee maker. I’m going to tell Snookie and Goldie to dress for dinner.”

After he left, James came closer and watched me until I looked up and back at him. “You didn’t _have_ to do this,” he pointed out in a quiet voice. 

“No, I did,” I looked away. “Really, I did. It’s keeping me from freaking out.” And that was true, of course. If I was _doing_ something I wasn’t brooding about matters beyond my control at the moment.

“Yeah?” he asked, moving closer. I slid my hands up his arms and smiled at him, but pulled back from his metal prosthesis because it was warm.

“Yeah. I don’t think you should lean against the stove though,” I told him cautiously. James looked down and I took advantage to kiss his cheek, lingeringly. He turned and kissed me back, and things would have gotten interesting except Steve returned so we leaned away from each other and tried to look innocent.

“I’ve sent messages to Stark and . . . sorry,” he got a little flustered, which was cute.

I cleared my throat. “Where’s Sam?” I would have expected him to make his way to the kitchen, considering how he’d liked my cooking this morning.

“Repairing his wings and cursing a lot under his breath,” Steve replied. “Apparently dousing them with lake water isn’t recommended.”

“He’s good with them,” James nodded. “I’m surprised he’s not still in the service.”

Steve gave a slow nod. “Yeah well . . . things happen. People change. I think we both know something about that.”

James nodded back. “The hard way. Tell me, did you ever . . .” he began.

Apparently Steve knew exactly what he was talking about. “I _wanted_ to go back, find your body. Everyone thought you were dead. We had orders . . . .” Steve squeezed up his face and I knew he was fighting back a lot of emotion. “It nearly killed me, Bucky.”

I almost didn’t want to be here, listening to this; it was so personal and so important but I didn’t want it to stop either. If I made them aware that I was there they might not get things said, or cleared or understood. So I kept quiet and concentrated on the coffeemaker.

James shivered a little, rubbing his right hand up and down his metal arm. “I knew . . . I _think_ I knew that everyone thought I died. Hell, I would have thought it myself, given the fall. And I’m starting to think maybe . . . . maybe it would have been a good idea if I had.”

“No!” All my resolve gone I nearly shouted it in unison with Steve, who had stepped closer to James.

“You helped get me through some of the hardest times of my life,” Steve reminded him in a choked-up voice. “The pneumonia, mom’s death, the polio scare . . . all of it. I wouldn’t even _be_ here if you hadn’t stuck by me through those times . . . Maybe you’ve forgotten them, Bucky, but I haven’t. I know what you did for me, and what I said is still true; I’m here for you. No matter how long it takes for you to feel safe and happy, I’m in it until the end of the line, pal.”

They just sort of stared at each other for a moment—I’m not really sure because my vision was sort of blurry then—and then James reached out and Steve hugged him. Damn. I was sniffling pretty hard right then and it would have been a wonderful moment if Steve hadn’t sort of jumped back and stared at James’ arm.

“Bucky, your arm . . .”

“What?” James looked down and when he touched it with his flesh hand I saw him wince, pulling his fingers back quickly. 

“What’s going on?” I wanted to know, hustling myself over and reaching to touch it too. James leaned back, and Steve caught my arm lightly, restraining me.

“It’s hot. Heating from the inside,” Steve murmured thoughtfully. “That’s not . . . normal, is it?”

James shook his head, bangs swinging a little, and I saw him scowl. “No.”

I looked from one man to the other, feeling a knot of anxiety tighten in my gut. James kept staring at his arm. He lifted it, and poked along the red star on the shoulder, making a little panel under the emblem pop open. “They kept my tracker right here . . . I took it out in DC and put it on a delivery truck about five days ago. Melvin, I need a knife. Something with a wide thick blade . . .”

I hurried to the nearest drawer in the kitchen, stifling my growl and digging around through the useless junk there as Steve helped James stretch his arm out on the island counter. “We’re thinking the same thing, aren’t we?” he asked, and James nodded grimly.

“Yeah. It would make sense for Hydra to slag it if I ever I went rogue or got captured,” James murmured. “Now that I think about it.”

“Mel, get Sam and Morty here,” came Steve’s order. “And we may have to hold off on dinner.”

I handed over the knife, and backed out of the kitchen, feeling dully scared again, realizing that it was just possible that my dorogoy was toting a shoulder to fingertip bomb now. Then I realized what I had just mentally labeled him and freaked a little about that too. Shit---this superhero business was putting my heart through a ricer, running it on a mandoline, dropping it in a processor and hitting ‘frappe’ big-time.

I didn’t want James to die. I didn’t want to die myself either, but that hadn’t been my first thought, and _that_ realization meant like it or not, I was feeling . . . committed to the big lug. I scurried out and found Morty in the conference room, noodling on his laptop.

“We’ve got a problem,” I announced, and filled him in. To his credit, Morty didn’t need more details than I had; he got up and pulled out his cell phone.

“Okay then. First thing is to get you and the gals to the bunker. Then, I can call in for bomb squad assistance.” He started to steer me along the hallway, and down in a direction I hadn’t been before. We stopped at a doorway to a garage and I spotted Sam there, drying off segments of his wing pack. He looked over at us, caught our expressions and came over.

“Morty.”

“The Soldier’s arm is heating up, from the inside,” Morty reported tersely. “It’s news to him, so the best guess is something might be going off inside it, probably set off by a remote or a timer. I need to get the rest of the crew into the bunker.”

“Gotcha,” Sam nodded. “Can he take it off?”

Shit. He was talking about James’ arm. I gritted my teeth.

“Don’t know. Cap’s with him in the kitchen and I’m betting that’s what they’re considering now,” Morty replied. “Gotta hustle.”

I tried to protest but Sam reached out and gave my shoulder a squeeze. “Go with him, Mel. I’ll find out what’s happening.”

That’s the shitty part about being a civilian; you get handed off and herded around a lot with these guys. Logically I know it’s for the best, but it doesn’t help the emotional part one damned bit. I cursed under my breath and let Morty lead me off, hoping like hell things were going to be all right. They HAD to be.

To their credit, Harriet and Goldie were pretty calm. They conferred with Morty a little, and then Goldie came over to me, looking serious. “All right then. I don’t have the medical facilities to deal with removing either a bomb or prosthesis, so we’re going to see what’s going on and take it from there. I’m going to go monitor Mr. Buchanan and wait until we know more about what we’re dealing with. Is it true that you’re a donor match for his blood and tissue type?”

I gave a helpless shrug. “I don’t know for sure, but it’s very likely,” I told her. “It hasn’t been tested or anything.”

“I can test you now and find out,” she suggested, so that’s what we did.

*** *** ***

The next hour sucked. Harriet took me to a claustrophobic room the size of a movie star’s walk-in closet and tried to teach me Gin Rummy while she and I waited for news over her walkie-talkie. She was trying to be nice, but telling me—a girl brought up by paranoid first generation Russians--not to worry was like trying to climb to the moon on a spaghetti ladder. I fretted; I couldn’t concentrate, and probably came across like a total idiot, but to her credit Harriet stayed calm.

“Honey, they’re gonna be fine. Sam’s picked up some file that was hidden in their Corolla that’s got all the information in it, and they’ll get it allll figured out.”

“Okay,” I offered back, trying not to sound sulky. Doc Goldie had confirmed that James and I _were_ the same blood type, so that was a little bit of comfort, but not a lot. I kept glaring at the walkie-talkie, wanting to hear what was going on, but it stayed annoyingly quiet.

Then---

“Mel, you can read Russian, right?” Steve’s voice came over the thing, so unexpectedly that I jumped a little.

“Ah, yeah.”

“Okay, we sort of _need_ you here then.”

THAT was more like it, and I looked at Harriet, who rolled her eyes a little and collected the cards before following me out of the bunker.

Everyone was in the infirmary, gathered around one of the padded exam tables. James had his metal arm out on it, and I noticed he was sweating. Steve, Sam and Doctor Goldie were around the table, packing bags of ices around it, and nobody looked happy. When I stepped in, Steve handed me an ancient folder. “Can you read this? Find something in here about what’s in the arm?”

I flipped it open. “OhSHIT,” I blurted at the picture clipped to the inside cover—James, looking like a ghastly side of frozen beef in a meat locker.

“Not that, inside, inside,” James told me, his voice strained.

I nodded and started skimming through, muttering quickly. “Okay, uh, they talk about the subject’s rank and and importance, um, the next two pages are about his injuries . . . major fracture of the left humerus, fragments of usable muscle strands with potential for attachment to prosthesis, oh a lot of medical terms but mostly for nerves I think . . .”

“Go further, look for information on the prosthesis itself,” Doc Goldie told me. “Is there anything on the arm itself in this file?”

I flipped through, passing pages about surgeries, about drugs, about rehab, and found a page with the words ‘Attachment/device’ at the top. “Okay here,” I looked up and around at everyone’s face. “It’s dated from two years ago.”

“Medical procedures are filed with the most recent on top,” Doc Goldie assured me. “Look for anything about self-destruct mechanisms.”

I did, scrabbling through the top page and trying to concentrate. Have you ever attempted to read while four deeply concerned people are watching your every move? I don’t recommend it, because your focus is shit. It took me about twenty seconds to find even a reference, and the notation had two sentences: _As per protocol, subject’s current attachment is equipped with ten day timer for the self-destruct flush process. Current solution is HCIO3._

“Um, it says here that the arm has a ten day timer for a self-destruct with a solution called hi-cee-io three,” I told them.


	10. Chapter 10

“Acid,” Doc Goldie gave a squeaky grunt. “Chloric acid. Oh that’s a nasty piece of work, and one of the reasons you’re in a bit of pain,” she added to James. “That’s a game-changer all right.”

“Doc,” Steve looked at her. “What do we do?”

She gave a sigh. “We have to take the arm off.”

Nobody said anything for a second; we were all in shock I guess. James gave a little groan and when he looked up I could tell he was definitely hurting. “Part of it’s grafted. I know that much. I also know there are rods holding it to what’s left of the bone, sort of like bike spokes.”

“That’s a start,” Doc Goldie told him. “All right. X-rays--at least conventional ones--are out. Melora, I’m going to need you to search through the rest of that file and see what you can find about the structure of arm and whatever surgeries attached it. Captain, if your friend Mr. Stark has any helpful suggestions _now_ would be the time to call in favors.”

“ _I_ know at least one person who might be able to help,” Sam spoke up quietly. “Doctor Ali Attah, over at the VA. Works with prosthetics.”

“Excellent,” Doc Goldie nodded. “Probably up to date on the latest techniques. Morty—"

“Getting Streiten on the line now,” he told us from around his cell phone. “What else you need, Doc?”

“Fire extinguishers and sand bags,” she replied. “For all we know, Hydra may very well have included explosives or incendiary devices within the arm as well and I’d rather be safe than sorry.” 

And here I thought I’d hit my top freak-out level already, but apparently not. I clutched the file and stared at James, feeling like I wanted to throw up. This could not be happening. _No._ Nobody would stick a bomb in someone’s artificial arm! We were supposed to be _safe_ now!

“Mel.” That was Steve, getting my attention. He came up and put an arm around my shoulders, squeezing gently and making me look up at him. Hard to focus because my eyes were filling up, but I tried. “We need your skills. The doc needs you to be able to read what’s in that file, okay? Nobody else here can translate Russian, so this is critical. Can you do it?”

I nodded, but I was looking at James when I did. He managed a sickly little smile back and that was pretty much all it took for me to get my shit together. I cleared my throat. _”I’m pretty sure I love you,”_ I told him.

 _”The feeling’s more than mutual. Fell for you after that second beer.”_ James replied, and I blushed. God, we were flirting like idiots here but it told me he was okay for the moment and I needed that, I really did.

I read the file aloud to Doc Goldie and James while everyone else took off to carry out their orders and get things in place. Periodically the doctor would ask me to repeat something, or check on James, but for the next hour and a half it was mostly me, struggling with weird medical terminology and formulas. I understood about a quarter of what I was talking about, and occasionally there were bits in other languages—German mostly—but the more I talked, the more Doc Goldie relaxed.

“All right . . . so far it seems that they haven’t implanted any explosive for the arm, which is good. I suppose it’s because it would be too difficult to stabilize, given the amount of hand-to-hand combat you do,” she told James. “So I’m sure we can rule out any overt or aggressive form of self-destruct. That leaves the far more passive acid wash.” She was standing behind him, looking at his shoulder, touching the edges of metal and flesh. “I can see a mesh here, just under the skin, very flexible . . . looks like protein-enhanced strands. How do you feel?”

“Like my arm is on fire,” James told her, his voice tight. “It’s getting worse.”

She rubbed his forehead with one of the ice cloths clucking a little at his temperature. “I know, I know. Give me a moment to check on something . . . Melora dear, if you’d come with me please.”

Outside the exam room, Doc Goldie put her arm on my shoulder. “I’m going to do something Hydra _wouldn’t,_ ” she murmured. “I’m _asking_ you for your help, sweetie. Melora, are you willing to donate blood and tissue if necessary?”

I nodded without even having to think about it, giving her my own sickly smile. “How bad is it, with the arm right now?”

She shook her head and took her glasses off to clean them. “Hard to say, but not good. I’m no engineer, but I suspect the acid may have been at the joints, eating through those first—I’m sure you’ve noticed he’s having trouble bending his wrist and elbow—and the problem is that it’s burning through the inner chambers outward. We need to keep the arm slowly moving so it doesn’t allow the acid to pool up and we certainly don’t want to lift it over his head and risk having the corrosive drain towards the living tissue of his shoulder.”

“And if we _don’t_ get it off in time?” I asked.

Doc Goldie pressed her mouth into a thin line and put her glasses back on. “Then surgery won’t be necessary because the acid will have dissolved whatever bone and tissue are still connecting the prosthesis to Mr. Barnes. He will probably die from blood loss and shock when it burns away from his stump.”

Yeah, there it was--the worst case scenario I’d been trying to avoid. I bit back my nausea and nodded again to Doctor Goldie. “Whatever you need from me,” I told her, “take it.”

“Okay then. I’m going to have Harriet sit with Mr. Barnes while we’ll get you prepped then. And Melora? Thank you. He’s got a much better chance because of this.”

A chance. That was the hope I needed to hang onto at this point.

*** *** *** 

So I was prepped. I donated blood, and stood by—or rather waited by—as other stuff started happening. Sam told me later that a bunch of S.H.I.E.L.D. loyalists showed up about half an hour later, including their head doctor and a pair of surgical nurses. I didn’t know much about that since I was confined to a hospital bed with nothing but my cell phone for company. Harriet came in and told me that the head doctor felt it would be best to remove the arm immediately before it did anymore tissue damage to James. Doctor Goldie told him I’d volunteered for donation of my own free will; then James finally agreed. 

“Stubborn son of a bitch,” I grumbled, but I had to admit I was touched.

Harriet nodded. “That he is. I’m telling you, the Grotto hasn’t seen this much action in forever. We’ve got people keeping an eye out above for our security, we’ve got the surgeon prepping, and Steve’s got some VIP making his way here too . . . As it is, looks like the two docs are going to start in about half an hour, so you and I will be on stand-by.”

“What happened to the chicken?” I asked, aware of my stomach rumbling again. In all the hubbub we’d missed the meal and it had to be sometime after midnight now.

“Morty took it out and we’ve been noshing on it every time we pass through the kitchen. I’d offer you some, but Doc Goldie says it would be a bad idea,” Harriet told me apologetically.

I shrugged. “I can always make more. And at least the coffeemaker’s clean.”

She laughed and patted my arm. I liked Harriet; she reminded me a little of my Aunt ‘Milla. “And it’s getting used big-time, sweetie. Anyway, I’ll be back in a while.”

About an hour later, Doc Goldie came in and gave me serious news: They needed bone tissue. Bone tissue! All I could do was look up at her and croak, “Ah, okay. Take it.”

And they did.

I was out after that for a long damned time, and when I finally opened my eyes I had no idea what time it was, what day it was or even quite where I was. Then Harriet came into view, looking a little concerned. “Hey honey, how ya doing?”

“O-okay,” I told her, not really sure I was. My shoulder hurt, and when I tried to look down I saw a big bandage all along my collar-bone. She understood my question and spoke up.

“That’s where they took the graft from you. Bucky’s doing good,” Harriet reassured me. “Steve said you’d want to know that. They got the arm off and there was only a little bit of, ah, damage.”

I glared at her, because even as out of it as I was, I could tell she was holding back something. She tried to hold my gaze and look innocent, but couldn’t do it long.

“What . . . damage?” I demanded.

“Mel, it’s okay,” she repeated. “Doc Goldie and Doc Streiten were able to neutralize the acid and save a lot of the neural connections. I don’t know all the technical stuff honey, but the gist of it is that Bucky’s going to be okay.”

“Wanna . . . see him.”

“You can’t just yet,” Harriet murmured, and she brushed my hair back to soften the denial. “He’s in a sterile room getting some ultra-fancy treatment, and you’re not in any shape to go anywhere _yourself_ right now, you know?”

So I said a lot of very bad Russian words, and Harriet just nodded, squeezing my hand and letting me run down until I started to cry. She stayed with me and I know I fell asleep because later I woke up again, this time hurting a little, and embarrassed by my jag and feeling drained in a lot of different ways. I looked over to see Sam sitting there, and he smiled at me.

“Wanna talk about it?” he murmured.

I smiled at him and closed my eyes. “Sam, who _are_ you?”

“A soldier,” he answered quietly. “A survivor, a city boy trying to make his family proud, a kick-ass Frisbee golf player and the only person in all of downtown DC who likes brown sugar poptarts right outta the box.”

I laughed and while it hurt my shoulder, it felt good too. “Poptarts. See if I cook for _you_ again.”

“Oh you will, you will. Now you’re gonna spend days trying all kinds of breakfasts on me. Morty and I have a bet going on how soon you’ll be heading for the kitchen again.”

I opened my eyes again and watched his grin fade into a more serious look as he leaned back in his chair. I cleared my throat. “Sam---how is he? Really?”

“He’s . . . okay,” Sam told me, not smiling now. “Not out of the woods yet, not by a long shot, but the surgeon and Doc Goldie are optimistic. Having your . . .” he waved a hand at my shoulder, “donations really helped things.”

“So . . . what happened?”

“They took the arm off,” Sam sighed. “Cut through the mesh and got down under it with little laparoscopic cameras. Apparently the acid took out a lot of the fancy biochips and nanites there and was dissolving whatever muscles he had left inside it.” He shook his head. “Pain had to be incredible, but he never said a word. They couldn’t risk putting him under for the operation.”

I blinked away tears. “Shit.”

“Yeah.” Sam nodded. “If I thought Hydra were motherfuckers before, it’s tripled now. Doing that to a person, a living _being_ . . .” He looked away and I knew he was trying to control his anger. I’ve done that myself at times, although at the moment I was too wiped out to do more than sigh.

“And the arm?”

“Packed up in a safety locker, waiting for Tony Stark to look at it,” Sam replied. He leaned forward again. “Steve says he’ll probably build Bucky a better one, too. So, how are you doing, Mel? Really?”

I thought about his question and bit my lips. “I could be better,” I admitted finally. “It’s been . . . a hell of a week for me, you know?”

Sam nodded. He didn’t say anything, and then I just started talking, letting it all sort of pour out of me while he listened, paying attention to everything I had to say. I told him everything. Told Sam about my family, about that awful night Uncle Mischa died, about running off to the lake with James . . . and when I was done about an hour later, I felt utterly drained. Peaceful, though. Kind of . . . emptied out.

“Damn, woman,” he half-smiled. “You _have_ been through the wringer.”

“And then some,” I agreed, accepting the glass of water Sam handed to me. After I’d had a sip, I closed my eyes again. “Thank you. That really helped.” 

He knew I didn’t mean just the water, because he grinned again. “Anytime. Get some sleep now, okay?”

“Okay. But the next time I wake up, I want to see James. And cook.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Sam told me.


	11. Chapter 11

I spent the next two days under Doc Goldie’s care, and by the time she allowed me to leave the infirmary I was absolutely tired of pre-packaged meals. Nutrition be damned; there’s something to be said for making your food yourself—taste, mostly. I gave Harriet and Morty a shopping list, promising all sorts of exotic treats and repayment from my cookie jar if they’d pick up the ingredients.

Then I went looking for James. 

I still couldn’t get used to people—other people—calling him ‘Bucky’ yet. I know that’s what he’d been called for years, and that it was an affectionate nickname and all that, but it still didn’t quite sit right on my tongue. Sort of the way my parents were never comfortable with President Carter calling himself ‘Jimmy’ to the nation. I remember my mother sniffing at that. “Jim-my . . . as if he wants his little friends in the Kremlin to come out and play!”

Anyway, all I’m saying is that I still thought of him as James instead of what everyone else was calling him, that’s all. I wandered through the Grotto, aware of a few other people around in various places, and I finally found the sterile room down beyond the infirmary central wing. It had a little window on the door and a huge keypad lock on it. I got on my tiptoes to look through the wire-reinforced glass and I could see him on a bed against the far wall of the room. James looked pale, all his hair under a gauze net, and I could see that yeah, his left arm was gone now. His whole left shoulder was wrapped up in thick bandages with all sorts of tubes and wires coming out of it, hooked up to beeping machines.

I snuffled once, told myself it wasn’t going to do any good to cry right now, and kept looking at him. 

He was easy to look at, really. I mean other than the arm being gone, it was still my same sweet man, complete with three-day beard and emo looks. I remembered the feel of him, his scent; the way he’d tasted. 

Then a face popped up at the window and I nearly yelled. The man on the other side of the door had a medical mask over his nose and mouth, but his eyes were kind, and he motioned for me to move back from the door. I did, reluctantly, and I heard it hiss. It swung open with a rush of cold, dry air, followed by the man himself. 

“Miss Zherdev. I’m Doctor Streiten,” the man murmured, closing the door and then pulling down his mask by pinching it at the bridge of his nose. “I’ve been wanting to meet you.”

“You’re the S.H.I.E.L.D. doctor,” I countered, looking him over. Older, African-American, slightly aristocratic and stern.

“I am. And you are the supplement . . . the _dopolneniye,_ according to the files.”

I nodded; not much point in prettifying what I was. He lifted my chin to look into my eyes, studying me. “Interesting. Did you know that there were eight donors created in the course of the Winter Soldier project?” He steered me back down the hall and we walked. I let my feet guide us towards the kitchen and Doctor Streiten didn’t seem to object.

“No.”

“There were at least six safe houses that we know about,” he murmured. “New York, Chicago, Los Angeles in the United States, and ones in Paris, Morocco, and Prague. We suspect there were probably a few others in London, Hong Kong, and Tabriz as well, but those haven’t been confirmed yet. Anyway, most had a . . . supplemental donor attached to them.”

“Like me,” I chuffed, stepping into the kitchen. Nobody was around although the coffeemaker was on, and I looked in the fridge, hoping my shopping list had been filled.

It had. Without even thinking about what I was going to make, I pulled out ingredients while Doctor Streiten watched me and continued talking. “Not _all_ of them were like you.”

“Were?” I looked up over the carton of eggs. 

He frowned. “They’re . . . gone. All three houses in the US have been dismantled. Yours by S.H.I.E.L.D. and the other two presumably by Hydra, since they’ve been burned to the ground. I wouldn’t want to make assumptions, but you, Miss Zherdev, _may_ be the only surviving supplement donor for the Winter Soldier program.”

I thought about that for a moment and went back to pulling out ingredients. I felt like making a quiche. “So how am I different—aside from surviving the purge?”

He sat down on one of the stools and folded his hands together on the counter, looking very formal. I sensed he was about to go into lecture mode so I pulled out more ingredients: cheese, onions, a hunk of black forest ham.

“Not only are you a genetically modified blood and tissue match for that young man in our sterile room, but you are _also_ imbued with elements of the Super Soldier Serum that created Captain America and helped build the Winter Soldier.”

He said this like it was a wonderful thing, beaming at me. 

I shrugged. “Imbued. So I have a smidge of weird chemistry in me—like a preservative?”

That was when the doctor probably clued in that I didn’t really care much, and he sighed. “I suppose so. What it tells us is that your physiology is capable of withstanding and incorporating the serum. We haven’t been able to access your medical records, but I would hazard a guess that you haven’t had too many illnesses or conditions in your life.”

“You’d be right,” I told him as I began hunting for a pie pan. “So all this is leading up to what, exactly?”

He cocked his head. “We’d like to take samples from you. Not many, and not a lot,” the doctor added when I frowned. “Just enough so that we can do a comparison with those of Captain Rogers and Sergeant Barnes. If we can isolate the common elements among the three of you, we may be able to figure out at least part of the formula.”

Now it was my turn to sigh. “Doctor . . . would this really be a _good_ thing?” I held up a hand when he started to answer and kept speaking. “That formula changed Steve Rogers—I saw that. Most of America saw that, yeah. But it changed James Barnes too, and nearly made him into a monster. Maybe it’s not so much the formula, but how it gets used, and I’m not sure S.H.I.E.L.D. is safe enough to harbor that sort of thing.”

He considered my words for a moment, frowned again, and gave a reluctant nod. “You may be right,” The doctor conceded, and I felt as if I’d scored a point for common sense. “However,” he went on, “you do realize that too, that your personal safety is now at risk. Hydra knows you’re alive and knows that WE know it as well. Like it or not, Miss Zherdev, you’re a part of this business now.”

In the time he’d been talking I’d measured out flour, cut the butter into it and was working on a crust for the quiche, finding some comfort in the process. I would never be the baker Ed is, but I could handle the basics here. “Yeah, I _did_ realize that,” I told the doctor, “and believe me it’s not a happy thought. However, if I have to choose sides, I choose the one that doesn’t experiment on people against their will, or promote an agenda of terror and intimidation on a global level. I may be a just a chef, but I DO know right from fucking wrong.” 

When I looked up, the doctor was grinning. I grinned back because it was sort of funny and sweet to see someone so formal all amused like that—I thought he’d be annoyed at my swearing. “What?”

“Nothing. It’s just refreshing to have someone so open about their feelings,” he told me. “I do hope you’ll give yourself some time to consider my request though—anything we can learn about the Serum will be useful as we tend to Rogers and Barnes.”

He rose up, gave me a little nod, and left the kitchen, giving me some time to work, and think, so I did. I made two quiches, popped them into the oven and started to work on a salad of shredded carrots and parsley with lemon Dijon vinaigrette.

Comfort food—for some people it means eating it; for me it’s all about making it.

I was just finishing up with the salad when Steve came into the kitchen, looking surprised to see me. I gave him a nod and he sat down at the island, watching me for a moment. By the way his hands were fidgeting I could tell he had something on his mind.

“You were in the Army,” I murmured. “Can you still peel potatoes?”

I got a grin in return, so I set him up at the sink with ten good-sized Russets and a peeler. Then I sat at the island and had a can of soda, supervising him. “So . . . are you going to try and talk me into giving samples too?”

He shook his head. I noticed Steve was very methodical about peeling; long even strokes laid edge to edge around each potato. That told me he’d been trained in a kitchen somewhere at some point. “Nope. You’ve already done a lot to save Bucky, and I’m not just talking about donating. Whatever we share, the three of us, I’m not interested in having it formulated and risk having it go into the wrong hands. I’ve already seen _one_ person killed for it and that was enough in my book.”

“Yeah, that’s sort of my take on it too,” I agreed. “I’m nowhere near what you and James are anyway. I’m sort of the residue in the bottle rather than the full formula anyway.”

Steve laughed at that, and tossed the peeler and potato in the air, exchanging hands before finishing that particular spud. “I’m grateful for your help, and he is too. Again, not just for the medical help either.”

I gave a shrug. “Yeah well, he’s sort of hard to resist. And before you ask, I have _no_ idea where he and I are going, relationship-wise. It may just die on the vine now that he’s remembering you and re-discovering himself, or we might have that ‘let’s just be friends’ talk, or who knows?”

“Actually, I _wasn’t_ going to ask,” Steve mumbled. “That part is, ah, your business.”

“Yeah,” I smirked, a little unconvinced. “It’s okay though. As long as he’s safe and getting better, that’s the important thing.”

Steve turned and waved the peeler at me, his expression thoughtful. “See, that’s why you’re good for him. Because you care about _him,_ even though you haven’t known Bucky very long. And you’re even his type.”

“His type?” I wasn’t sure I liked the sound of that, but Steve rolled his eyes, smiling.

“Brunette, and feisty. He always had a weakness for a woman who could speak her mind. Of course that was a long time ago—”

“Back when women were ‘dames’ or ‘dolls?’” I asked, wanting to laugh because now Steve was getting uncomfortable. I was willing to bet he’d gotten a rush education on women’s rights since being revived.

“Maybe,” he conceded, cocking his head. “All I’m saying is . . . thank you. Thank you for taking care of him when nobody else was there.”

Damn his sincerity. I squirmed a little and tried to shrug it off. “Hey, he’s um, good for me too. So . . . how did you two meet, anyway?”

Steve reached for another potato and started talking. “In the summer of nineteen twenty-six, I was nearly run over by an ice wagon. The delivery guy was making his rounds, and there were a handful of us kids following, begging for chips every time he stopped. This was _years_ before refrigeration and in those dog days when Brooklyn baked the ice man was like a king. Anyway, he was trying to chase a few of us off from hitching rides on the back when I slipped face-first in the gutter, behind the horse, and about a foot or so ahead of the left front wheel. That iron rim came rolling towards me and would have broken my spine if Bucky hadn’t grabbed my leg and dragged me back. As it was, I ended up banging my chin on the curb, and Bucky used his shirt to stop the bleeding, yelling at the ice man the whole time.”

I wanted to laugh but didn’t. “Wow. He saved your life then.”

“Yep. And we ended up with a shirt full of ice chips,” Steve smiled. “A little bit bloody, but still good. Anyway, after that, Bucky told me to stick with him and I’d be okay. Since he was stronger than I was, and pretty smart, I did.”

I came over and took the peeled potatoes from him, slicing them and layering them in a buttered dish, sprinkling grated cheese and herbed bread crumbs between each layer. “Soooo you grew up together.”

“Yeah. Hung out from third grade on. I know his favorite ice cream flavor, his favorite baseball team, his pin-up dream girl. Paulette Goddard, in case you’re wondering.”

I made a note to look her up on Wikipedia later. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. I kinda had the hots for Joan Bennett and we agreed to split Thelma Todd.”

“Glad you could reach an agreement on that,” I snorted, and checked on the quiches.


	12. Chapter 12

I checked on the quiches. They weren’t done yet, so I closed the oven door and looked at Steve, who was doing the dishes. Definitely trained by someone and I was betting it was his mother. “Hey, you don’t have to do those.”

“I don’t mind,” he admitted, so I let him. We got into a good little routine with me taking each item he handed over and drying it. I noticed he was more relaxed now and that was good. 

“So how is he? Have you seen him? Can _I_ see him yet?” I asked, trying not to sound anxious. Steve concentrated on a wooden spoon before answering.

“Doc Goldie says that he’s healing pretty well. The acid burned the edges of his remaining muscles but didn’t do any lasting damage. The arm had a sort of locking shaft that connected to the bone nub of his humerus. The surgeon was able to dismantle it and Stark’s been looking at it most of the day along with Sam’s associate from the VA. I went in to see Bucky this morning but he’s in an induced coma to help him heal so . . . I don’t know how much he hears when he’s like that. Talked to him about this season’s lineup for the major leagues. We’re both going to have to make some serious decisions about who to root for now.”

“He’s in a _coma_?” I must have been louder than I thought because Steve flinched a little.

“Medically induced. They’re monitoring it, it’s helping him heal.”

“But,” I tried to protest. I had an inkling of how James felt about being frozen; being in a coma couldn’t be much fun for his psyche either. “When will they take him out of it?”

“I don’t know,” Steve admitted. “Soon I think. He’s got the healing factor working for him, and the boost of your blood transfusion probably helped that. I know you can go see him, but it won’t be for long.”

“Don’t care. Let’s go.”

Steve smiled.

Going into a hospital room is always kind of scary, and when you’re seeing someone you have . . . feelings for, it’s even more so. I wore the mask that Doc Goldie recommended, and used the booties as well, but it all just made the experience that much weirder. I got to go in alone; there was a nurse visually monitoring him from the far end but from behind a glass booth. 

I came up to James and took a good look, trying not to let myself get scared or angry or weepy. It wasn’t easy until I turned my gaze to his face; then everything sort of faded behind this rush of exasperated joy. James has the longest, darkest eyelashes, and I think his cleft chin is cute as hell. I reached to take his hand—his only hand now—and felt its warmth as I squeezed it. “ _Okay you sexy bastard, you **have** to get better now, you hear me? You’re the only one around here I can practice my Russian with, and I’m not sleeping well with you being in here and not with me.”_

I wish I could say his mouth twitched, or that he sort of smiled, but that would be a lie. He didn’t move or change at all. So much for all the clichés the romantic movies had shown me. I sat down in the chair next to him, still holding his hand. I kept talking. “So. Steve told me about how you’d saved him from being run over by an ice wagon. Started in the hero business early, huh? I bet you were a damned handful for your mother. I bet you gave her grey hair with your antics and she forgave you for them because of that smile of yours. And I bet you had the girls flocking around you all the time. Sheesh.”

I looked at his profile, wishing his hair was out of the net. “I hope you’re going to keep the longer hair,” I murmured. “Makes you look a little like Joan of Arc’s mercenary brother.”

I let that sink in, and then sighed. “James, I don’t know what’s going to happen from now on. You and me, we’re on the right side, the same side, but we’re also just pieces in the game between S.H.I.E.L.D. and Hydra now, and that’s a lot for my tiny little mind to wrap around. Maybe if my parents had indoctrinated me I’d be able to cope with this stuff, but they didn’t. I think now that maybe they’d been pulling away from their own allegiance to Hydra for a while and hoped I’d live my own life. I don’t know; I don’t have anyone left to ask. And . . . you’re kind of in the same boat.”

Which was true. I’d been thinking about it in my odd moments. Steve had people helping him re-adjust to this century, but I didn’t know if James would get the same sort of assistance, especially given his past. It wasn’t _his_ fault Hydra turned him into a weapon, and I wouldn’t be surprised if S.H.I.E.L.D. was a little afraid of him.

“Anyway,” I went on, “I just wanted you to know that whatever happens, I . . . care about you. A lot.” Then I stopped, because I didn’t want to start crying, and if I said another word, I would. So I held his hand for a while and tried to concentrate on good thoughts.

I’m not a religious person. My folks didn’t practice any particular faith, and I grew up sort of taking the world at face value, but I did have a teacher in high school—Mr. Sato—who was Buddhist. He would meditate before school and invited students to join him sometimes, gave us sort of simplified instructions on how to focus. Later on, it helped me get through some tough cooking sessions, and I got into the habit of giving myself time to meditate before work.

Ed always told me my meditation was just praying with all the ‘Our Fathers’ taken out of it, and he was probably right. In any case, I figured whatever I could do to help James was worth doing, so I sat there and let myself focus on the good, feeling it flow through me, making me feel better. When I was ready, I stood up and gently set James’ hand back on the mattress, giving it a squeeze. Then I leaned over and kissed his cheek, mostly so I could breathe in the scent of his skin. Warm but not fevered. A good thing.

 

I had dinner that night with Morty, Harriet, Doc Goldie and Steve, all of them digging into the food in a way that warmed my heart. We were at the dining room table, and I wondered if anyone else was going to join us, but Harriet assured me that Doctor Streiten and his nurses had already eaten earlier.

“Now don’t strain yourself,” she added, looking at my shoulder. The bandage on my collarbone was smaller, but I did my best to look compliant.

“The salad is outstanding,” Doc Goldie told me. “I’ve always been a big fan of carrots. You really are a chef, aren’t you? Where did you train?”

So I trotted out the quick version of my resume and threw in a few funny stories to keep everyone upbeat. Steve was quiet, but I noticed he cleaned his plate. I asked him where Sam was.

“He had to check in where he works. Luckily the specialist could vouch for him, and I suspect they’ll both be back in a day or so,” Steve replied. 

“And Tony Stark?” The minute I asked it, Morty smirked, Harriet rolled her eyes and Doc Goldie chuffed a breath into her bangs. I looked around, confused. “What?”

“Tony Stark is . . . very interesting,” Doc Goldie sighed. “ _Classic_ ADHD in that one. Thank goodness he and Doctor Attah hit it off.”

“Engineering,” Morty explained. “Took his attention off the Grotto here, which he wanted to buy and make into the Iron Cave.”

“Iron . . . ohhhh,” I muttered, snickering at the idea of Tony Stark wanting his own secret hideout. “Why? He’s got that huge . . . peppermill out in Lower Manhattan.”

“Who knows? He blew in here talking like some interior decorator, met Doctor Attah and the two of them disappeared into the dry dock garage, talking about trilobots,” Harriet sighed.

“Nanobots,” Steve murmured. “It’s uh, microscopic technology.”

“Whatever sweetie. All I know is it was exhausting to have him around for even five minutes. How any of you heroes put up with the man is nothing short of saintly.”

I caught Steve’s twisted smirk and laughed along with Morty. Doc Goldie smiled and spoke up. “As long as he’s kept busy, he’s out of trouble, and I think that the benefits will go to Seargent Barnes before long. In the meantime, we have some other matters to consider. Melora, there are some gentlemen from the government who have an appointment to see you tomorrow afternoon.” At my panicked look she reached over to pat my hand. “It’s all right. We’ll be here; you’re under our security. Harriet’s got clout.”

“And a law degree,” Harriet added. “Not everybody who worked for S.H.I.E.L.D. toted a gun you know. I’ll just sit in, if you don’t mind.”

“I’d love to have you there,” I nodded gratefully. “Any idea what they want?”

“I don’t, but I have my suspicions,” Harriet told me as she rose and started to collect the dishes. “I bought ice cream; anybody want some?”

Hands went up around the table and I tried to smile even though I worried about what the feds wanted. After a cone of cherry fudge, I headed to my room and finally, _finally_ emailed Ed after getting clearance from Morty.

_Ed,_

_I’m okay. Sorry for the disappearance. I guess you could say I pulled a Sarah Conner. Long story short: I got caught between the good guys and the bad guys and had to make a run for it. There’s a lot to tell you and I’m not sure exactly when I’ll be in the clear, but it should be soon, I hope. Repeat, I am not in trouble, I’m just off the radar. Oh, and I met a guy. He’s . . . not my usual type, but that’s probably a good thing too. Anyway, I’m going to see if I can get clearance for you to come see me, or for me to see you because yeah, I owe you the whole story. Hope you got the job, sorry I couldn’t help out there.  
Remember when I was bitching about how I wished something exciting would happen once in a while? Well I take it back, big-assed time, har-de-har-har. When I get you up here, I’m going to force you to make me one of your Aunt M’Cher’s seven layer Chocolate Devil cakes and you and I are going to eat the whole damn thing._

_Soon, and hugs,_

_Mel_


	13. Chapter 13

Mr. Radeesh looked like my old Biology teacher—tall and thin and grey. He had on a suit and a pained expression, probably because Harriet was giving him the evil eye the whole time we shook hands. His associate Mr. White was short, round and, almost bubbly by comparison. We all met around the dining room table across the long sides. 

“Miss Zherdev,” Mr. Radeesh began. “Do you have any identification to prove who you are? I hate to ask, but I’m required to.”

“Not _with_ me,” I admitted, aware of my purse still being tucked away in the cabin across the lake. Mr. White produced a little briefcase and pulled out an electronic fingerprint reader, setting it up happily; I could tell he was the tech of the pair.

“Not a problem. We have your prints on file from your work records, and if you’d consent to verify—” He looked at Harriet, who scowled but nodded, “then we can proceed.”

I pressed my thumb against the pad and it flared green, proving that I was indeed, Melora Ivana Christiana Zherdev, of Brooklyn New York. Mr. White beamed and put his toy away again as Mr. Radeesh cleared his throat. “All right, good. Miss Zherdev, my associate and I are here on behalf of the United State government to offer you condolences on the loss of your uncle and an explanation for the confiscation of your property at 40° 42' 16" North, 73° 59' 47" West also known as number Five Water Street.”

“Confiscation? On what grounds?” Harriet asked.

“Terrorist activity, Ms Van Gundy,” Mr. White replied. “Both S.H.I.E.L.D. and Homeland Security have uncovered enough evidence in the basement to justify commandeering of said property.”

“Terrorism?” I squeaked, feeling panicky now. “No! My uncle was over eighty years old!”

“Please calm down Ms Zherdev,” Mr. Radeesh murmured patiently. “Nobody is considering your _uncle_ to have been a threat. Our technicians have told me that the apparatus in the basement of your house was extremely outdated in and of itself. Still, given that it had been installed and maintained—dubiously—by Hydra gives the government ample justification to impound the house and grounds.”

Harriet started to bristle but I looked at her and sighed. “I’m not going to disagree because I can’t. I just don’t think anyone in my family was a terrorist. They never _did_ anything to overthrow the government as far as I can remember.”

Mr. White drew in a breath. “Given the state of that equipment I can vouch for _that._ ”

Mr. Radeesh shot him a quelling look and turned back to me. “As far as our background checks can show, your family was not involved in any political or criminal activity of any sort. Upstanding citizens, voted regularly, paid bills on time . . . if it wasn’t for having a safe house in the basement they would be completely beyond suspicion.”

“So what’s your point?” Harriet wanted to know, and I appreciated her bringing the conversation back to the here and now. 

Mr. Radeesh wouldn’t be hurried though, and looked at me. “Those investigations included you, Ms. Zherdev, and again—nothing remotely out of the ordinary aside from a few more speeding tickets than the average person.”

I blushed; Harriet made a face. “Uncalled for,” she shot back.

“Point taken,” Mr. Radeesh admitted, looking slightly apologetic. “I apologize.”

“It’s okay,” I muttered. “So what do you want with me?”

“We would appreciate you assistance in closing up this particular situation,” Mr. White told me. “I’d like you to answer a few questions about your family history, and after that we have a reimbursement check for you to compensate for your lost assets.”

I looked at Harriet, and she looked at the two men. “I’d like a moment to talk to my client alone, please.” Without waiting for either man to speak, Harriet got up and motioned me to follow her into the kitchen. I did, feeling torn between wanting to giggle or shiver. Once we were there she spoke up.

“Mel, I’d like to _be_ there when they question you. It’s your right to go it alone, but I think it would be best if I was with you.”

I nodded. She went on. “And before you accept any money, let me have Morty run an appraisal of your place from the most up-to-date real estate assessment, all right? Nice as the offer is, I don’t want to see them give you any _less_ than the property was worth. There should be some compensation for your emotional trauma as well—you didn’t _ask_ for any of this to happen to you, kid, and they need to know that. Good?”

I gave her a hug, and she hugged back; for a moment there it was like having Mom or Aunt ‘Milla back. She brushed my bangs out of my eyes, smiled at me, and we went back into the dining room. Mr. Radeesh and Mr. White looked up from their cell phones as I nodded to them.

“Okay. As along as Ms Van Gundy can stay with me.”

“Absolutely,” Mr. Radeesh agreed, and we got started.

It took about two hours for me to answer questions, and most of them were pretty basic—where my folks came from, when they arrived, what I knew, _if_ I knew about anyone from the former Soviet Union. I told them as much as I could remember about Dad and Uncle Mischa’s jobs, about my doctor appointments, about growing up in the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge. Managed to get through most of it, but I came close to tearing up a few times as it sank in that I really was alone now. Mr. White was pretty sympathetic, and even Mr. Radeesh was patient, but in the end I don’t think there was anything much I told them that they didn’t either already know. 

After that I was too tired to think straight, so I let Harriet examine the compensation offer and when she began blinking like a disco strobe, I took a peek over her shoulder at the check in her hands.

There were too many zeros on it, and my overtaxed little mind couldn’t quite fathom how much this really was, but Harriet cleared her throat and set it down, giving Mr. Radeesh and Mr. White a little smile.

“We need to think this over and would appreciate twenty-four hours before we come to a decision,” Harriet murmured. I nodded my agreement and the two men nodded back.

“Very wise,” Mr. Radeesh replied. “We will be in town for the next two days so anytime you need to reach us, you can. Ms Zherdev, Ms Van Gundy, thank you for your cooperation and time.”

And like that they were gone, escorted out by Morty while Harriet let herself collapse in the chair, overcome by what looked like a fit of giggles. I asked her what was so funny.

“Oh nothing . . . I’ve just never held a check for three and a half million dollars before sweetie!” she told me, giving a shake of her head. “So good to see they’re not low-balling you at least because that sounds like fair market value for the property.”

“Three million . . .” I mouthed it but I couldn’t get my head around it. Three million was over the moon to me; more money than I could even conceive at the moment. “I . . . why? Why so much?”

“Because your Uncle’s house was on prime real estate mostly,” Harriet got up and put an arm around me. I really appreciated the way she was so generous with her hugs, and squeezed back. “It may not have seemed like anything special to you, but a location like that can be re-zoned, developed---I’m surprised Stark didn’t put a bid in on it, you know?”

“Maybe he did,” I sighed. “Still, I’m glad you told them we’d think it over. Right now I just want to go see James.”

\--oo00oo--

It had been a few days and Doctor Goldie had said that they were going to take James out of the coma gradually; I felt better about talking to him under those conditions. I went in and kissed him, feeling cheered when he sighed a little in reaction, then I sat down next to him, taking his hand.

“So should I open my own restaurant, or just go into the catering business?” I asked James lightly. “Looks like I’ve suddenly got enough to do either. Maybe even both. Might even consider some foodie road trips to learn about world cuisine, _dorogoi moy._ What do you think about a journey across the world to find the best corndogs in the world, huh?”

I didn’t expect any response, but the weak squeeze of my hand made me look over. James’ eyes were still closed but he was definitely smiling, those adorable dimples of his bracketing his mouth. For a second I said nothing, and then ever so gently tightened my grip on his fingers. “Ohhh, so you _like_ that idea, huh? Crazy man. That would mean a lot of carnivals and fairs you know, in all sorts of weird towns.”

He didn’t look fazed by the idea, even with his eyes closed so I chuckled and bent closer. “And when we’re done, I’ll compile all the best recipes in a book and call it ‘Jimmy’s Corn Crack and I Don’t Care.”

It was terrible; the worst pun I could think of and James groaned, still smirking, and I reached out to stroke his face, a shiver of pleasure running through me as I touched his bristles and warm skin. If he could respond, he was getting better and that was all that mattered to me. 

Mattered to me more than the money, actually. 

I whispered to him, things that would have embarrassed me if anyone had been listening in, things I felt and meant, and finally I kissed him, ever so gently, hoping he’d open those big blue eyes of his for me like some guy version of Sleeping Beauty.

He didn’t, but James did lick his lips as I pulled away, and I’d be lying if I denied a throb of hunger for him. I hadn’t known James Buchanan Barnes long, but I had known him deeply, and man, I wanted to know that sensation again. But he was in a hospital bed, and I was stuck wondering how to deal with a sense of uselessness that all the money in the world couldn’t quite erase. 

“Wake up soon,” I begged him. “I really miss you.”


	14. Chapter 14

It took three more days for James to make it back to consciousness, and by then I’d gotten into the habit of cooking for everyone at the Grotto. It helped keep me busy, and useful, which was good. I tend to brood if I’m not doing something. I tend to blame my Russian genes for that, although at the moment I did have a lot on my plate, figuratively speaking. Doctor Goldie and Harriet did their best to make things easy for me, but it was pretty clear that I wasn’t going to be walking out on my own any time soon. The S.H.I.E.L.D. housecleaning was still going on, and apparently the Hydra infiltration was incredibly uneven. It looked as if they had a lot of agents in the Logistics and Weapons divisions and hardly anyone in any of the other departments.

Morty pointed out how ridiculous that was. “So you have all these agents trying to get through to other agents and since they don’t have anybody in the Communications department, they have to do all these covert contact dates. They had only six guys in Transport and _every one_ of them got wounded when they tried to wipe out Fury, the yutzes. You’d think they would have had a few agents in Internal Security, but noooo, they had to throw together a last-minute group to deal with the Captain and we all saw how THAT turned out. Double Yutzes.”

“So have they found them all?” I wanted to know. I was rolling out dough for cookies while Morty kept me company. 

He shook his head. “We’ll _never_ find all of them, toots. Human nature being what it is, there are always going to be people attracted to the sort of fascist power Hydra represents. At best we can flush out those we know and do our best to keep S.H.I.E.L.D. up to democratic standards, but . . .” Morty gave a shrug. 

“Do we have agents in Hydra?”

He laughed. “You know, I _don’t_ know. Fury might, but if he does he ain’t talking. Frankly I hope not—playing the double cross is a tricky, dangerous and morally depressing game. Give me the straightforward soldier every time.”

“Hel-lo?” came a familiar voice, and I jumped, literally jumped when Ed came into the kitchen, ushered in by Harriet, who was grinning. I scrambled around the counter and threw myself at Ed, who rocked back and clutched me too, laughing and patting my back. “Mel, Mel, Mel . . . so when the _hell_ did you get kidnapped to cook for secret agents, hmmm? Seriously girlfriend, I am jealous enough to go from black to green here!”

“Ed,” I tried to laugh but it was too tangled up with other emotions. “Don’t even get me started.”

I noticed Harriet and Morty had slipped out; Ed noticed my dough. “Oh no,” he chirped firmly. “No, no, no, no NO. Too dry. Come on, let’s start again, and don’t tell me otherwise.”

Before I could say anything he’d swept the crumbly mat I’d been trying to roll out into the garbage and was tying a towel around his waist, humming to himself. I shot him and look and Ed grinned, pushing up his hornrims and grinning back at me. “Don’t you _give_ me that pout, woman—who took second place at the Five Boroughs Bake-off? Who Won the Wesson Oil recipe of the year award?”

“You did,” I grudgingly admitted, and redeemed myself by getting out the flour, butter, eggs and sugar for him. “I was going for a basic sugar cookie.”

“Oh we can do better than _that,_ ” he waved a hand at me. “Please! What spices do we have?”

“Anise, cardamom, ginger, clove, and cinnamon,” I told him. “All market-fresh I might add.”

“Good. So talk to me, Mel-belle, because I am in a freakin’ underground secret _lair_ and if I don’t get the full story I’m going to have a fit. What. Happened. To. You?” Ed demanded. He smiled, but I could see the strain around his mouth, and behind his hornrims his gaze was serious.

So I told him. To his credit, Ed didn’t miss a beat in his cooking, although he _did_ have to fish eggshells out of the batter when I mentioned how Uncle Mischa died, and when I tried to skip over the night after the carnival he gave me a knowing look that made me squirm a little. By the time I got to the high-speed boat chase he had rolled out the dough, cut the cookies, folded them into pinwheels and had them in the pans.

“So let me get this straight,” Ed replied, “From birth you’ve unknowingly been part of a sleeper agent’s cell, and went on the run with one of their biggest weapons only to be rescued by one of _our_ biggest weapons?”

“Uh, yeah. Crazy I know, but . . .” I shrugged. Ed was already reaching for more flour and I hoped he remembered what I’d requested.

“But here you are. At least you’re still alive and in one piece,” he pointed out. “But where does it end, Mel? Are you going to be able to go back to Brooklyn? Or are you going to need a full-time bodyguard?”

He had me there. “Shit, I wish I knew, Ed. Right now I’m . . . an asset. Inside of me I have some smidgen of whatever it is that makes Captain America and James what they are. Not a ton of it, but it’s there somewhere, and I don’t think I can get rid of it.”

“Probably not,” Ed agreed. “Pass me that sifter would you? Thanks. Well if you want _my_ advice . . .”

“I do.”

“Stick with the good guys,” he told me quietly. I watched him sift the flour and sugar together, his long hands moving expertly at it, and I nodded.

“Yeah, I agree. Anything else, oh wise one?”

“Uh, yeah. Change your name, your hair, and head to Canada,” Ed replied. “Or at least one of the states that doesn’t have a lot of Hydra activity. Have you considered Sanibel, Florida?” I knew that was where Ed was from, so it was in part a joke. 

“The hair I can do, and James already calls me Melvin,” I replied, wondering what color would look best on me. Ed rolled his eyes as he reached for the cocoa powder and I knew he was making the seven layer cake, so I gave a little squeal of joy.

“Behave yourself or this is all going home with me,” came the admonishment, but he was grinning as he said it. “I can bake it, and I can take it; remember that.”

Once it was in the oven, Harriet and I took Ed for a quick tour of the place and he looked a bit overwhelmed. I couldn’t blame him since a lot of it still overwhelmed me as well. Still, he was quick enough to claim we could make it a restaurant and charge through the nose for it, which made both Harriet and me laugh. We were still chuckling when Doc Goldie intercepted us and smiled at me. “He’s awake and wants to see you,” she murmured.

I ran. 

Doctor Streiten was there, but I didn’t focus on him at all; I scrambled over and reached for James, slid my hands around his arm and dropped right into that intimate zone between us, searching his face, holding his gaze.

He had dark smudges under his eyes and the hairnet made him look like a lunch lady but when James looked at me I felt such a jolt from his stare. A direct connection of concern, relief, and hunger all latching onto me. My hands tightened and I gave a little hiccup, saying the first thing I could think of. “Cake. Do you want some cake?”

Stupid. No context whatsoever to that, you know?

James nodded, his eyes never leaving mine, and his lower lip quivered just a little bit on that melancholy face of his. I tried not to laugh, or cry, and so when he pulled me in and kissed me I went with it, letting everything else in my head go away. He tasted metallic, but it was still a good kiss, and I was reluctant to let it end. I pulled back a few inches and James drew in a sigh, both of us feeling more than we could put into words.

I realized Streiten was deliberately checking some equipment, giving us a little privacy, and the nurse behind the glass was turned away too, so I whispered to James. _“Hi. God I’m so glad you’re alive.”_

_”For the first time in ages . . . me too,”_ He told me in a hoarse tone. _”I had dreams about you. You, and corndogs.”_

That made me laugh aloud, and James grinned, those dimples flashing for me. Then he looked over at his bandaged left shoulder and his expression shifted, all the good humor draining away like water as he realized his situation. It hurt to see the move from warmth to stiff realization, to see the way he curled protectively towards the empty side of his torso, his face turning away from me. “I guess you _had_ to, huh?”

“We did.” That was from Streiten, who was looking over my shoulder now, his voice still aristocratic, but with some empathy in it. “Your prosthetic had nearly twenty centiliters of chloric acid eating through both the biomesh and the relay circuitry connecting your remaining bone and muscle tissue to the arm. In my thirty six years of medicine I have never _seen_ a more despicable fail-safe device!”

I shivered, watching James take that in. He didn’t look surprised, and that only horrified me more, but he did squeeze my fingers lightly. “They told me if I was ever captured that I must do my best to escape, and that if I didn’t succeed within a few days I would be deactivated. Never really knew what that meant at the time.”

“Termination in such a fashion as to make an unmistakable statement,” Streiten muttered. “Cold war mentality married to fanatic extremism. Abominable.”

“ _Fuck_ Hydra,” I hissed, wishing the entire organization had one pair of nuts so I could kick them with pointy high heels. “In every orifice they’ve got and all the _new_ ones I’m going to open in them with my Misonos!”

That got a startled look from Streiten and a half-smirk from James, who gently freed his hand from my grip and swept his hairnet off. Much better, I thought, but the doctor looked a little pained. “Sergeant Barnes---”

“No,” James growled. It was weak, but cutting. “I’m not in anyone’s army now. I’m _Bucky_ Barnes; got it?”

To his credit, Streiten did, giving a little nod of acknowledgement. “I do, but enlisted or not, you need to rest, sir. You’ve got an amazing constitution but even so it’s been compromised to the limit.”

“He’s right . . . Bucky.” The name felt strange, and from the look James shot me it was clear that he wasn’t used to it—at least from me—either. I reached over to touch his bangs again, mostly because I liked touching them, and he closed his eyes, nodding.

“All right then,” the doctor murmured. “Thank you, Mr. Barnes.”

He and the nurse got James settled again, and it killed me to have to walk out, but I knew if I stayed I’d be in the way, and I had a guest waiting anyway. When I made it back to the kitchen, Ed was pulling the cake pans out and I spotted the ingredients for the frosting neatly lined up along the island counter. He looked at me and ordered, “Whip it, Mel. Do us all a favor and aggress the _hell_ out of that buttercream!”

I laughed, and got started. Ed knows me and my moods pretty well and has used them for tasks in the kitchen just like this. I worked on the frosting, (I cheated and used the mixer) while Ed puttered with making decorative chocolate curls and humming under his breath. When I was done, we both had coffee, sitting quietly together, letting the cakes cool.

That’s part of what I like about Ed too—just being quiet together. He’s good that way and I suppose people who’ve seen Pacific Rim would say we’re drift compatible when it comes to kitchens. If I ever open a restaurant, he’ll be my first hire and probably my partner within six months, you know? 

Anyway, the cakes cooled and we managed to layer and frost them together, working in tandem the way we always did when we shared a kitchen. Ed had just finished the last swirling dollop along the edge when Steve and Sam came in, and at the sight of them Ed blushed. Seriously, I could tell, and it would have made me laugh but Steve was focused on me and I had to be patient. 

“How is he? I got here a few minutes ago but he’s asleep and I didn’t want to disturb him,” Steve told me, looking anxious. “Is he okay?”

“He’s good,” I replied to both of them. Sam was looking over at the cake with interest, and flashed that gleaming white smile of his at us as I spoke again. “I saw him for a few minutes and he was groggy but he knew me, so that’s a good sign.”

“Yeah,” Steve agreed, and then caught sight of Ed. He held out a hand. “Hi. Steve Rogers, and this is Sam Wilson.”

“E-Edward Lamot,” Ed managed, “Oh my God. Do you even _know_ who you two ARE?”

Sam’s grin widened. “I’m pretty sure we do.”

“You two,” Ed spluttered, waving his spatula, “YOU are going to be the _first_ superheroes to enjoy my aunt M’Cher’s seven layer Chocolate Devil cake! Pictures! I need to take pictures!”

Sam looked at Steve, who was a bit taken aback, and laughed. “Man wants us to eat cake, Captain. I think we should accommodate him.”

I caught Steve’s glance and laughed. “Yes he’s always like this, and he’s my friend. Also, he’s probably the best baker in all five boroughs.”

Ed was already bouncing around with his cell phone and it took me a moment to get him steadied. “Security,” I told him ruefully. “Pictures of this place aren’t allowed, Ed.”

He pouted for all of two minutes, cutting thick slices and serving them up gracefully, and then sighed. “Damn. How am I ever going to prove to my aunt that Falcon had my cake? Oh, and Captain America,” Ed added as an afterthought. I could see the makings of a serious crush here, and tried to keep my expression calm.

“Tell you what,” Sam offered, “You call her when I’m done and I’ll tell her myself.” Looking at Steve he added, “I had _no_ idea heroes ate this well. Looks like I’m going to up my cardio big-time.”

Steve finally smiled and after murmuring his thanks, picked up a fork. “Yeah, I think I could take one for the team here.”


	15. Chapter 15

Watching Ja . . . Bucky eat his first piece of cake turned out to be touching and funny at the same time. When I brought the piece to him, he struggled to sit up, his eyes locked onto the plate in my hands, and I have to admit I felt a pang of jealousy. To be fair, Ed’s aunt’s cake is certainly worthy of the worship, but I wasn’t ready to admit that just yet. 

Ed was gone; headed back to Brooklyn with a S.H.I.E.L.D. escort and thrilled that Sam and Steve each had second slices of the cake—an act of dedication considering how big both the slices and the men were. I could see little hearts in Ed’s eyes every time he had looked at the Patriotic Pair and hoped that he understood his crush would have to stay just that.

In any case, he hadn’t met Bucky yet, and I was sure that once he did, Ed would probably include my sweetie in the love fest as well. Given how the man could eat, Bucky might even move to the top of the list in Ed’s estimation.

“Choc-o-late caaaake . . .” Bucky sighed in a way that sounded amazingly obscene. I tried not to giggle but it was clear that I was only window dressing at the moment. I looked over the top of the plate, waiting until his gaze rose to meet mine. It was a surprisingly long wait, actually.

“Yes, chocolate cake. This is my friend Ed’s specialty and I asked for it because it’s the best damned comfort food in the world. Doc Goldie says you can have some of it if you eat slowly and don’t shovel it all in at once. And to make sure of that, I get to control the fork.”

There was another reason too, but I didn’t say anything about his bandaged shoulder because I didn’t want anything to ruin the moment. Bucky was going to have to deal with waiting for a replacement arm for a while and nobody at the Grotto knew how long that would be. Tony Stark and Sam’s doctor friend were still hashing out the inner guts of the original arm, trying to salvage what tech they could from the acid damage but it wasn’t the sort of job you could rush, apparently. Steve told me that Tony suspected there might be further boobytraps and wanted to be cautious.

So for the moment Bucky (the name is still odd to me) was going to be right-handed for a while. 

Bucky looked at me through his bangs, clearly calculating if I could move quickly enough to satisfy his chocolate lust. I sat on the edge of the bed, held the plate up and proceeded to cut a bite off with the edge of the fork, making sure to get a good dollop of frosting with the cake. He licked his lips in anticipation and I held the fork up between us, smirking.

“One for me and one for you?” I suggested.

_“All_ for me and none for you,” he countered, giving me the serious soulful puppy eyes. I might have relented if it wasn’t for the hint of a grin along the corners of his mouth.

_“That_ sounds a little greedy,” came my pout, but I brought the fork to his mouth and he took the bite. Have you ever seen the way a shark’s eyes roll back when it goes for that first chomp? That was my sweetie, although in a much cuter way. He looked on the verge of swooning, and I wished I could have videoed it for Ed. As it was I snorted a little and pulled the fork out of Bucky’s mouth. He was a bit reluctant to let it go but I got it back and waited as he chewed, clearly enjoying himself

“So? Good?”

“Yeff, Gaw yeff!” came the enthusiastic if mumbled reply. He leaned forward, eager for more but I waited until he’d completely chewed and swallowed the first bite before I scooped another out for him. I wasn’t trying to be a tease, really—I just wanted to be sure he didn’t choke on anything before I fed him any more. After all, this was M’chere’s crowning achievement and while men might die for it, I didn’t want Bucky to be the first to die _from_ it.

Still, it did my heart good to see him enjoying it so thoroughly now. If his appetite was back, then he had to be on the mend, physically. So I fed him, always a little slower than he wanted but steadily enough to keep him from growling at me and the cake disappeared pretty quickly. When it was all gone, Bucky eyed the crumbs but I set the plate down and took a moment to wipe the traces of chocolate from the corners of his mouth. He squirmed away, slightly irritated, and I caught his chin in my hand to make him stop.

“Behave,” I murmured.

He mumbled something defiant but gave in with a sexy little sulk and I finished wiping his lips before I asked him, “What was that?”

“I just . . . I don’t want you . . . babying me,” Bucky muttered, looking at the plate on the nightstand. “Not you.”

“I’m _not_ babying you,” I countered, feeling a little guilty. “You had food on your face; I don’t want the nurses to laugh at you.”

“Well I wouldn’t have it if you’d let me feed myself,” he huffed. “I’m not _helpless._ ”

“You’re recovering from surgery,” I pointed out, feeling myself get a little prickly in return. “Anyone in that situation can use an extra hand.”

The minute I said it I froze, feeling like twenty-seven kinds of bitch for how thoughtless stupid that sounded. Bucky turned those big blue eyes to me and I swear on my dead uncle’s soul I’ve _never_ felt a gaze so chillingly cold. In the space of three seconds he’d gone from fussy patient to glacial cyborg with icy fury locked up behind that emotionless expression.

I flinched, feeling sick to my stomach. “Shit, I didn’t mean it that way!”

He said nothing; that made it worse. I licked my lips and tried again. “Bucky . . . James, I’m sorry. It’s just an expression, not any kind of . . . crack.”

Nothing. I’d hoped he would soften and forgive me, maybe just sigh . . . SOMEthing to break the lifeless look on his blank, beautiful face, but for the moment he was gone, locked up tight behind an impenetrable wall. I made a move to touch him, but for the first time since I’d met him I was too afraid to do it. Whatever he was at the moment, he wasn’t James or Bucky or anything I understood. Miserably I pulled back, desperately trying to think of something to crack the mood. 

But now I was too intimidated to push it, so I slowly rose from the edge of the bed and picked up the empty plate. A part of me yearned to stay, but another part just wanted to hightail it out of there and curse myself for a while longer. “Okay then . . . get some rest,” I told him and headed out. I swear I could feel his eyes on my back the entire time. I passed the nurse at her station but she didn’t look up from her cell phone as I left.

It hurt. A lot. I hadn’t meant a damned thing by my remark but now it was pretty clear that I was going to have to watch my words, and I wasn’t sure I could—not that I’m mean-natured or anything but I do have a temper and sometimes things slip out . . . but not this time. This time was just thoughtlessness.

So I wandered around the Grotto and went to the boat dock, looking out at the water there and half-way wishing I could just jump on one of the two there and sail off. I heard footsteps behind me and Sam came up, joining me there. I guess my face said a lot about my mood because his smile slipped away and he sighed. “You okay?”

“No,” I confessed, and told him what happened. Sam listened and nodded as I spilled it, and when I was done, he reached out to rub my shoulder. “Okay. First thing you need to know, Mel, is this isn’t your fault. Stop thinking that you’re going to have to censor every word out of your mouth, got that?”

I must have looked doubtful because Sam managed a little smirk at me. “I’m serious. Bucky’s lost an arm. That’s a hard loss and one he’s got to deal with from now on, replacement or not. But the world isn’t going to stop revolving and throw a pity party for the man because of it. Holding a grudge against every person who reminds him of his disability isn’t unusual, but he’s gonna have to get over it. I’m a little surprised it happened given how long he’s been working with an artificial limb already.”

I nodded a bit. “Yeah, me too, but he may not have had it _off_ in a long time either. I don’t know what to say to him now, though. I want to be comforting but I don’t want to baby him, I want to help, but not do too much for him . . .”

Sam nodded. “Best advice I can give you is to let him set the pace. He’s the one who needs to figure out his own timetable. You can take your cue from that, and remember—you need to talk, I’m around, you dig? You have your _own_ shit to deal with, and it’s a lot, I know.”

I hugged him, feeling a lot better. It’s funny—I’d known Sam for an even shorter period of time than I had Bucky, but he was easy to like, and easy to trust. You have to go with your gut instinct on people and mine was telling me that Sam Wilson was a genuine Good Guy. What he said made a lot of sense too, so I managed to get myself to bed without brooding.

Sleeping was harder but I tried to put everything out of mind and let myself drift off. Right before I did, I managed a little quick ‘thank you’ to the universe for the people around me.

\--oo00oo--

Hours later, something woke me in that quick flinch that happens when your sleeping brain hears an unfamiliar sound. You know the feeling? You jolt awake, alert for whatever it was that sent the alarm through your head? In my case it was ghostly white, standing next to my bed, clinging to an IV pole.

Bucky. Of course.

_”You fucking IDIOT! What the hell are you doing here, dorogoi? God in heaven you should be back in your bed, not wandering around like a zombie ninja!”_ I threw back the covers and shot out of bed, then shifted around, wondering if I dared try to steer him back or even touch him. Bucky had his only hand wrapped above the monitor box of the IV pole and I could see his bare feet under his hospital gown. He turned his head to follow me and in the dimness it was nice to see some emotion there—mostly amusement.

_”Standing. Sort of.”_ he replied, the corner of his mouth quirking up.

I wanted to hit him. I wanted to hug him. I settled for rolling my eyes and coming closer, putting an arm around his waist. “You shouldn’t be here.”

He shook his head at me and kept speaking in Russian. _“We’re in danger. And I’m sorry,”_ Bucky told me in the same whispered breath. I blinked up at him, wondering which comment needed my attention and picked the first one.

_“Danger?”_

He nodded and leaned down, brushing his cheek against mine. I felt the scratch of his beard against my skin as he whispered, _“Hydra agent. The nurse. Had to tell someone . . . to tell you.”_

I blinked, looking at his face, trying to think of what to do. _”You’re sure?”_ I asked, stupidly, fear starting to rise up in my chest. Hydra, here---this was Not Good on a massive scale and my ‘run-the-hell-away’ instinct was kicking in.

He sighed, bringing his hand up from the IV to cup my face, thumb rubbing the corner of my mouth. Warm touch, so alive . . . I turned my head to kiss Bucky’s thumb. Silly yeah, and sentimental but I was so damned glad to have him back. He darted in and kissed me; a lingering one that assured me he really was sorry without using any words. When he pulled back a few inches, I murmured, _“We need to tell Morty and Harriet. They’ll know what to do.”_

I got a nod, and then he sagged a little. I helped support his empty side and we began the trip back to the hospital bed, keeping our voices in a whisper as we navigated the low-lit hallways, keeping to Russian.

_“The cameras are on us, so someone probably knows I’m out of bed,”_ he told me. _“If anyone asks, I was apologizing to you.”_

_“Yeah,”_ I agreed, and then asked, _“Did I really . . . offend you, or was that just a plan to come see me?” ___It bothered me that he might have been using me for that.

Bucky drew in a breath. _“I was pissed,”_ he confessed as we turned a corner. _“What you said . . . it was the same sort of joke that Pierce used to make when he would see me. He meant it to remind me of my handicap, and when I heard that similar phrase coming out of you . . . I just reacted. I’m sorry.”_

I tightened my hug around his ribs, suddenly glad that Alexander Pierce was dead. Anyone who’d taunt someone about a missing limb was a grade A asshole, and now that I knew about it, I promised myself to watch out for any more triggers. Just as we reached another corner, we heard footsteps; Bucky took a half-step ahead of me in a protective gesture.

“Sergeant Barnes, what are you doing?” 

I froze. The nurse stood there, looking concerned, her gaze bouncing between us. I gave her a smile. Tried to, anyway.

“That’s what I asked too. We had a little fight and he wanted to apologize,” I blurted. “Crazy, huh? What a guy.”

She didn’t look entirely convinced, but Bucky spoke, his voice steady. “I couldn’t sleep until I said I was sorry.”

For a moment all of us looked at each other, and then she seemed to relax. “Well that’s sweet, but it’s time to get back to bed. I’ll give you a sedative and then you’ll be off to sleep in no time.”


	16. Chapter 16

I jumped in, sounding a touch breathless, “Oh that’s okay. I’ll just sit with him until he goes to sleep. He’ll be fine.”

The nurse smiled, and it killed me because it was an easy good-natured smile. The sort of expression I would have trusted without even thinking about it . . . until now. She didn’t look like either of the two agents I’d encountered back home as she gave a sweet little chuckle.

“Well okay, but are you sure? Those chairs aren’t very comfortable.”

Bucky shifted closer to me. “We’re good,” he murmured in a low voice. 

Nursie had no wiggle room now so she nodded and went to his other side to help guide him, but he shook his head, so she awkwardly led us back. She stayed close so I couldn’t whisper to Bucky, but I was on high alert, waiting for her to whip around with a syringe or a gun. Of course she didn’t do any of those things and when we got back to the intensive care room I was aching with nervous tension. 

It was almost easier when people were shooting at us, I swear. At least then I knew enough to run or hide. But trying to figure out how to stay alert and not look like I was waiting for an ambush? I hovered around Bucky, helping him back under the covers and lingering as long as I could before moving to sit on the edge of the bed, holding his only hand.

_”Will you be all right?”_ I murmured as the nurse stepped away.

_”Stay,”_ Bucky asked very softly. _”I’ll keep you safe.”_

I sort of teared up even as I wanted to laugh; this man, honestly. Here he was, in a hospital bed, missing an arm, being watched by a possible assassin and his concern was about my safety. I laced my fingers with his and nodded as I settled in.

It was a long night. I talked in a low voice to Bucky and told him all sorts of stuff—about the hardest recipe I ever tried, and how I met Ed, and my favorite movies. Crazy stuff, the sorts of things you share when you’re trying to make the time pass and you don’t know how long you need to keep it up. Twice, the nurse came in to check his blood pressure and pulse, but I noticed she didn’t do anything else, and that sort of reassured me. By the time five o’clock rolled around I was nearly sleeping next to Bucky and seriously punchy.

But when Doc Goldie came in she smiled, and patted my shoulder. “All right, Mel, time to let a few other people take care of your beau here.”

I rubbed my face, trying to think of a way to talk to her privately without leaving the room but nothing came to my muggy mind, and I almost blurted something out but I felt Bucky catch my wrist, lightly and squeeze it. “ _Go sleep. I will handle this,_ >” he told me and managed a smile that held comfort and danger in it.

I didn’t like being dismissed, but I also knew that my being there had probably prevented the nurse from doing anything serious to him through the night, so there was that. I kissed him and slumped out, hoping I could nap for a while, but I hadn’t gone ten steps out along the hall when I heard something crashing behind me. I turned back, running for the door and yanking it open in time to see Doc Goldie do a perfect judo throw on nursie, laying her out flat on the linoleum floor. The doc put one booted foot on the woman’s chest. “Do NOT get up,” she ordered in her usual sweet tone. Then to me she added, “Mel, please fetch Morty and tell him to bring zip cuffs.”

\--oo00oo--

The nurse’s name was Candy Burke, and she was carrying two ampoules on her—one of a strychnine compound and the other one some formula that neither Doc Goldie or Doctor Streiten recognized. I didn’t sit in on the interrogation although Bucky and Steve did watch it through the two way mirror.

I left them to it, hoping if it triggered anything with Bucky that Steve would be able to help him.

Everyone else in the Grotto was packing up and preparing to disappear. Sam and Harriet were everywhere, directing people, checking off lists, and alarmingly, setting up explosives around the exits. I almost questioned that, but it dawned on me that the place had been compromised, and at this point it was better to seal it off and re-claim it later . . . if SHIELD could.

So to help out, I did what I did best; I fed people and stayed out of the way. Once again it eased my worries to have something to do and although it didn’t stop all my concerns it helped. Sam stopped in for muffins a few hours later and gave me the timeline; he looked older and much too serious. “Eighty minutes and counting to detonation, Mel. If you have any gadgets or utensils here you want to keep, better get them packed now.”

“Shit,” I blurted, casting a glance around. Most of the stuff was standard but I’d gotten really fond of the Kitchen Aid mixer and a few of the spatulas. “Got any boxes . . . and where will it go? Where will we . . .” I stopped, not sure how to ask. Now that we knew there were possible double agents around it was tough to ask anything directly.

Sam tucked in the rest of the peach muffin before replying. “Harriet’s got an idea for us,” he murmured, “someplace a little warmer than here. Is there anything you want from the cabin, by the way? It’s probably being watched but I can do a quick retrieval if there’s anything there you can’t live without.”

I considered that and shook my head. “Nah, nothing I can’t pass on, although I wish I could get back to Brooklyn. As it is, I’m stuck in these—” I pointed to my SHIELD sweats with a little sigh, “—until I can go shopping.”

Sam laughed. “Harriet’s got a company credit card; she’ll make you shop online when you and Sergeant Romeo head out.”

Apparently the story of the Midnight Apology had been shared with the Patriot Twins and I felt myself blush. “Sam--”

He held up a hand but he was still grinning. “I know, I know—but you have to admit it was pretty romantic. Annnd we’re looking at seventy one minutes now, so let’s get packing.”

 

Three hours later, we left out of Schenectady County Airport via a jet bearing the logo for some fish export company on it. By ‘we’ I mean Sam, Steve, Bucky, Harriet, Doc Goldie, and me. Morty, Doctor Streiten and a lot of plainclothes serious-looking agents drove off earlier with the nurse. I guessed they might have been going back to the city, or maybe onto DC, but I didn’t ask. At this point my mindset was that the less I knew, the less I’d be considered a threat. 

They made Bucky use a wheelchair, which pissed him off, along with the make-up job that had him looking his real age for once. Steve had on a medical smock and a stethoscope around his neck so anyone seeing him would take him as Bucky’s aide. Harriet had a cane and Sam to help her along while Doc Goldie wore heavy dark sunglasses and hung onto my arm as she did her best Helen Keller routine. Altogether we looked like some extended senior citizen field trip, and I guess that was sort of the point. If anyone had been looking for four young adults, they wouldn’t be watching for a party of six with geriatrics in the group.

Still, it was nerve-wracking to make our way through the tiny airport and I didn’t relax until we were actually inside the jet. A man was waiting for us on the plane, and Steve seemed to know him; he gave the guy a quick nod. “Agent Coulson.”

“Captain Rogers,” the man replied in a mild voice. He rose up and I noticed how both Harriet and Doc Goldie smiled at him. Smiles of relief and genuine fondness.

“Phil. You’re looking good,” Doc Goldie murmured. “Getting enough vitamin D?”

“Oh Phillip . . .” Harriet sighed and wrapped him in a hug he had not been expecting, although I noticed he did hug back for a few seconds before extricating himself.

“Goldie, Harriet. I knew I could count on you two,” he responded and gave them a little smile. He looked at me then, and I realized that although his expression stayed mild, his gaze was plenty sharp and took in everything. “Miss Zherdev. Thank you for your help.”

“You’re . . . welcome?” I responded, not really sure who this guy was. I’d heard Harriet mention a Nick Fury, but nothing about the man in front of me looked furious at all. Heck, he looked like someone who would have worked with my dad in the accounting business; somebody who barbequed on the weekends, and polished his shoes on Sunday nights. I looked down to check: yep. I could see my reflection in his.

“Sergeant Barnes,” Agent Coulson looked at Bucky, who was staring back from under a tweed golf cap. “Welcome back to the United States.”

Bucky didn’t say anything. I saw him give a curt little nod, and then Steve put a hand on his damaged shoulder. Bucky relaxed at that, and I tried not to be jealous. 

Agent Coulson spoke up, and I noticed he didn’t raise his voice at all; everyone else got quiet. “You’re booked through to Charlotte County Airport and after that, the Sand Dollar Inn. Six bungalows, two of which will have our people there undercover. Plan on at least a week’s stay, longer if there are . . . complications.”

I tried to figure out if he’d actually mentioned where we were going, but before I could ask, Harriet gave a chuckle and fist-bumped with Doc Goldie.

“Florida, yes! Pay up, Gold.”

“I was so _sure_ it would be New Mexico,” Doc Goldie sighed. “That little retirement community near Taos.”

“They were booked; Puente Antigua final debriefing,” Agent Coulson murmured. “At the moment, our intelligence on Hydra indicates that re-capturing Sergeant Barnes is their top priority, and that failing that, killing him is the second one. They seem to believe that the arm is still in working condition and we’d like to keep them in the dark about that as long as possible so that Stark has the time he needs with it.”

“And in the meantime?” Bucky demanded. “We sit around and wait?”

“In the meantime, I suggest you let yourself heal and catch up on the last seventy years, Sergeant,” Agent Coulson replied very gently. He was starting to scare me a little with all that patience. “And, anything you can help us with about Hydra would be . . . appreciated. Have a safe flight.”

He made his way down the aisle of the jet and out to the ramp while Harriet and Goldie settled in a few of the seats. I looked at Bucky, who heaved himself out of the wheelchair and into a window seat on the right side. Steve folded up the wheelchair and tucked it away, so I slid in next to Bucky and tried to catch his eye.  
He didn’t turn to face me until we were flying, and even then the smile he gave me was full of shadows. “What’s a cute number like you doing with an old geezer like me?” Bucky mumbled.

I told him tartly. 

That got half a smile from him, and he handed me the golf cap. “People,” Bucky sighed. “I’m just starting to realize I am not used to being around more than three or four people at a time. This last week has sort of set my teeth on edge.”

I nodded; this I could understand and it sounded good to me that he was realizing it too. “I get it, sure.”

“And,” he lowered his voice, leaning closer to me. “Steve is . . . trying so Goddamned _hard._ I know he means well, but every time I don’t remember something he looks like a kicked puppy. It’s almost worse than facing up to the Hydra handlers when I let him down that way. And yet . . .” he shrugged, which was sort of lopsided without his arm, “I’m trying to remember.”

“Time,” I mumbled. “Everyone says it takes time to bring back your past. I suppose pictures might help too.”

“Maybe,” Bucky agreed, tiredly. He was already slumping against me and I let him, loving the gentle tickle of his hair. After a while both of us must have dropped off, because the next thing I knew I was waking up to Harriet’s hand on my other shoulder, shaking me lightly.

“We’ll be landing in about twenty minutes, Mel honey, and once we get settled I’m going to have to take you shopping because sweats are not going to work in south Florida.”

I blinked and tried to get a glimpse out the window where it was dark. “O-okay. What time is it?”

“Nearly ten o’clock,” Harriet smiled. “We decided to let the two of you sleep while I taught Sam canasta. I had no idea Steve already knew how to play, along with pinochle and poker.”

“Cribbage too?” I asked, and Harriet nodded.

“Tells me he spent waaay too much time indoors as a kid, that’s for sure,” she replied in an undertone, and moved back to her seat across the aisle. I peeked back a few seats at Steve, who gave a little wave, and mouthed, ‘How is he?’ to me.

I gave him a thumbs up even as I looked Steve over, wondering exactly how many libraries, living rooms, and clinics he must have lived in when he was younger and weaker.

A lot, I guessed.

He nodded back and I fumbled my way back into my seatbelt, hoping Florida would be safer for all of us, and wondering if anyone else was feeling hungry.


	17. Chapter 17

The Inn was one of those old vacation places probably built in the late Forties, back when coming to Florida was the ultimate getaway. Rickety, humid, small—I sort of loved it, actually. There was just something about seeing real linoleum on a kitchenette floor, or fighting with wooden shuttered windows that made me feel more comfortable than I would have been in a cold and soulless modern condo. 

The little bungalows sat in a sort of courtyard arrangement behind a larger one that held the front office and beach parlor, as our manager, Mr. Heyward called it. He had thick white hair that he wore in a braid down to his waist, dark leathery skin and sharp green eyes that took us in without any judgment. It helped too, that he knew Harriet. I was starting to wonder if Harriet had connections with every senior citizen on the East Coast by now, but I figured that the network of retired SHIELD agents must be more extensive than anyone knew about.

Still, it was nice to settle into a place so . . . laid-back. We had part of a wildlife refuge at our backs, and the calm waters of the gulf in front of us. I loved the sweet, briny scent of the water, and the soft rustle of the palms was the perfect white noise my poor nerves needed. 

Our first morning there, Doc Goldie took Bucky in for an exam and came out looking concerned. Over Cuban coffee, she told me and Harriet that although he was healing, there were complications beginning, especially with the nerve endings and bone stub.

“His body wants to scab over all those endings now that he doesn’t have the arm on,” she told us. “And that is going to be a problem, particularly since we don’t know how much longer we have to wait for a new one. Right now I have everything packed with bio-gel and cushioning, but the longer we wait, the harder it will be to fit Mr. Barnes with any prosthetic.”

I frowned. “Should you be telling us this?” After all the hush-hush business with the Grotto I was caught between the fine line of what was ‘need to know’ and what wasn’t.

Doc Goldie patted my arm. “You’re listed as his next of kin, along with Captain Rogers, dear, and Harriet is the designated agent in charge. On top of that, Mr. Barnes has stated that whenever possible, information be shared. His exact words were heavily salted with profanity, but in essence, he feels secrecy was a terrible factor that created him and he’s rather done with that part of his life.” 

“Oh,” I murmured, feeling touched and worried at the same time. It was all well and good to want openness, but with Hydra agents potentially anywhere, I wasn’t sure I could back his policy 100 percent. 

Doc Goldie must have understood my expression because she gave a lopsided little grin. “Yes, it’s risky, but he’s entitled to have his wishes respected. All I want for him now is to rest and allow his body to heal. Super Serum or no, the man requires downtime.”

So we figured out how to relax. Harriet borrowed Mr. Heyward’s old VW van and took Steve and me to a little grocery store, allowing me to stock up. I took my time wandering the little aisles, impressed by what the place carried even as I started to consider our menu options. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed Steve looking over the fishing rods, and Harriet was stocking up on sunscreen. When I made my way to the counter to join them, Steve was forking over money for a fishing license.

“You know how to fish?”

“Nope,” He admitted cheerfully, “but it’s a tourist thing. I’ll learn.”

After that, Harriet arranged to have the food delivered, and then drove us to the only mall on the island—Periwinkle Place—and herded me into the nearest clothing store. I pointed out that I didn’t have a dollar to my name, but she countered that I would in the near future and, fine, she’d hold on to the bill for re-imbursement if I was going to be stubborn about it.

I told her she was being a pain in the attorney and she laughed even as she sent me into the dressing room with armfuls of outfits. It took me a grand total of twenty-seven minutes to step out with two weeks’ worth of outfits for Florida. Lots of pastel tee-shirts and white shorts, three tropical sundresses, and a tankini that showed more of my ass than I wanted it to, but it was the only one I liked. Harriet approved of all of them and made me go choose underwear and sandals while she did her own wardrobe overhaul.

We ended up meeting Steve at one of the little restaurants and he was carrying several bags himself; apparently he’d been drafted to shop for Bucky and Sam as well. In the end we shared a lunch of conch fritters and salad, finally relaxing a bit together. Harriet handed Steve a tube of the sunscreen.

“You’re gonna burn,” she predicted. “I don’t care how amped up your physique is sweetie, the sun is merciless down here. Mel, you too. Might want to get some bronzer at some point. Now, let’s talk about Bucky.”

“What about him?” Steve wanted to know. I looked around but we were at a corner table and far enough back that nobody was pay much attention to us, not even the waiter.

Harriet sighed. “I’ve read the files on him—the Bucky Barnes he was before being lost—and he doesn’t strike me as the sort of man who likes being idle. What was he like, Steve? What did he enjoy back in the day? What can we do to help bring back that young man?”

Steve slumped a little, and wiped his face with his hand before speaking. “What was he like? He was fun. Always big with the girls, but didn’t have a steady one too often. Knew every dirty joke in the book. Bucky was the sort of guy who liked to take things apart to see how they worked. Couldn’t always get them back together the first time but he could figure it out pretty quickly. Great with clocks and typewriters and cars; Bucky could get a jalopy going in a single afternoon. He liked it when I hung out at the garage and drew while he puttered around.”

“Mechanics,” Harriet nodded. “Was he one?”

Steve nodded. “Lohan and Sons over on Bedford Avenue. Packards, Chryslers, DeSotos, motorcycles sometimes too. I took the day classes and Bucky took the night ones but we usually had dinner together at one of the diners. He was always late because he’d insist on showering after work and getting the grease out from under his nails.” Steve blinked. “I haven’t thought about that in years.”

“Packards,” I murmured. “Um, not a whole lot of those around anymore.”

“Or DeSotos,” Harriet nodded. “Still, with his aptitude it’s clear how he became proficient with weapons: good hand/eye coordination and an understanding of mechanical design.”

“He shouldn’t have gone,” Steve blurted out, and I saw old anger bubble up. “Bucky’s folks needed him; he was the only one with a steady job. I talked him out of joining up after Pearl Harbor because the garage needed him too, but so many were going, signing up every day, and there I was, stuck not being able to do my part and knowing Bucky was exactly what the Army was looking for.”

“You were . . . envious?” Harriet asked softly.

“I . . . a little,” Steve deflated a bit, looking down at his big hands. “But it wasn’t just that. Bucky had family, was family to me. If I joined up nobody would miss me much, but Bucky had parents, a sister, uncles and a couple of cousins in Queens. He’d leave a big hole in their lives.”

All of this made me shiver a little, and it hurt to see Steve still upset by all of this. I reached out and rubbed his arm, stroking the long muscles here until he turned his head and gave me a small smile.

“Sorry. It’s an old argument that I lost a long time ago, but it still hurts.”

“I get it,” Harriet assured Steve, looking tenderly at him. “I do. And it must have been a hell of a surprise to him when you showed up and saved his ass from Hydra.”

“A little. Took him a while to deal with my change,” Steve murmured. “I think he was afraid that I wouldn’t . . . need him. He’d saved my ass regularly for a number of years and was used to that dynamic. I tried to show him things were still the way they’d always been but . . . they weren’t. I’d gotten good at taking care of myself. I was the one taking care of other people now and Bucky didn’t know where he fit in with that shift.”

“But he was with you in the Howling Commandos,” I pointed out. “Part of a team.”

“Yes, but . . .” Steve hesitated, still looking at the table top, “he wasn’t used to having me take the lead. We tried to get around it, and most of the time it was okay, but every now and then in the middle of the fighting, he’d step in front of me, or start to tell me to duck. The stuff he used to do when we were kids. It was pretty ingrained and I know it embarrassed him when he’d realize what he was doing.”

Harriet made a sympathetic noise and I recognized her thinking expression. She spoke up again. “What did the two of you used to do for fun? Maybe something there will help pave things over.”

“Ball,” Steve replied promptly, and for a moment his face lit up, dimples making him look pretty damned cute. “We never missed a home game out at Ebbets Field. I’d keep the stats and Bucky was in charge of the heckling. One time,” Steve’s grin deepened, “one time, he nearly got beaned on orders by Durocher. It took three players on the field to hold Leo back to keep it from happening and Bucky ate it up. He had the crowd with him and we walked out like kings that afternoon.”

I had to laugh; I could just picture Bucky doing that, catcalling some infuriated player and trying to bring the fight to himself in the stands. Harriet was chuckling too, and nodding. Even Steve looked pleased at the memory.

“So he had a mouth; good,” Harriet announced. “So, what if we took in a minor league game? The Miracle will be talking on the Birmingham Barons day after tomorrow and I’m sure we can get tickets.”

Steve looked up, blue eyes wide, and damn—if I wasn’t already in love with my sulky sweet dorogoi, I might have actually considered flirting with the All-American. “Live? At a stadium and not just something broadcast?”

“Live,” Harriet assured us. “Complete with muggy air, mosquitoes and corndogs.”

I laughed. “Wow, baseball AND corndogs—we might not be able to get Bucky to LEAVE once the game is over.”


	18. Chapter 18

Getting into the water took a little courage on my part. I’m not a great swimmer—wading’s more my style—and I was used to cold water, like at the lake. This Florida ocean though—I could get used to it, yes indeed. Relatively warm, with knee-high waves and a lot of sun. 

Harriet had slathered me up before letting me out, and I could feel her bug-eye sunglasses turned my way when I waded out into the water. Sam was already out in the deep, splashing around and looking like he was going to make fun of me for my timidity, but hey, I’m from New York, and swimming isn’t something I do on a regular basis, so I felt I was entitled to a little caution. The water was nice, though, and so clear that I could see exactly where I was stepping, which was also neat. When I was waist deep turned so that I could wave to Harriet and Bucky back under the big pop-up canopy that Steve put up. 

That’s when a wave caught me, dousing me but good, and when I spluttered back to my feet, I saw Bucky was up on his, looking like he was about to charge into the water which would have been a terrible idea. Bad enough that he was around the sand, which could get into his bandages, but adding the water as well . . . I surged towards him, stopping him before he got much more than his shins wet. “I’m okay!”

He reached out, hooking his right—and only—hand around my upper arm. “Right,” Bucky muttered, his gaze hot even through sunglasses. _”You’re practically naked and now everything’s . . . **clinging** to you.”_

_”That’s what happens when I get wet,”_ I murmured back. _”What’s wrong with you?”_

What he rumbled in response was pure, baleful mat, enough to make me grin as I let him tug me out of the water. The essence of it was that he was very unhappy that all my womanly charms were on display for Sam and Steve, mostly because I was making him intensely horny and was either naive about it, or enjoying his torment. 

I can’t really deny the latter, since it did my ego some good to know the man still desired me. Still, my suit wasn’t anywhere near scandalous, and as for womanly charms, well—unless Sam and Steve went in for women of curvy peasant stock I was safe from any seduction on their parts. I’m not bad, but I’m no model either, you know?

Still, Bucky was eyeing me over the top of his sunglasses like I was wearing beer-soaked lingerie, and I shot him an exasperated glare. “Pass me a towel, please.”

He did, reluctantly, and I dried myself off a bit. I noticed Harriet was keeping herself deeply engrossed in the newest Danielle Steele novel, but her little grin made it clear she was aware of our situation if only on the sidelines.

“We’re taking a walk,” I announced, not leaving any room for disagreement as I dropped the towel on the cooler. Bucky followed me back out along the beach, grumpy under his baseball cap and sunglasses. He had a grey tee-shirt with the left sleeve pinned up, and baggy shorts that only seemed to emphasize how pale his legs were. Not that I was exactly golden brown myself. 

I stayed on his right side and led the way along the waterline, making my way out of earshot before turning to look at him and sighing. “Look, I appreciate that you’re coping with a lot right now, but what I’m wearing is actually pretty modest for this point in time. So stop making it sound like I’m a porn star.”

“I can’t help it,” he growled back, pulling off his sunglasses.

THAT pissed me off; I spun and cupped his jawline, forcing his eyes to meet mine. “You can and you WILL help it,” I told Bucky sharply. “I don’t belong to you, James Buchanan. Much as I love you, I’m not going to have you telling me what I can and cannot wear.”

“You,” he gritted his teeth at me, “are driving me to fucking drink, Melvin. Once, just once would you do what I say? I’m not _telling_ you, I’m asking you, because God forbid, people _are_ looking at you; people who have pretty obvious intentions concerning you and it makes me want to kill them. I can do it; I’d rather not but you know damned well I can.”

I could feel myself steaming up. “You’d kill them for _looking_ at me? Get a fucking _grip_ on yourself! This isn’t nineteen forty-five and you have absolutely nothing to be jealous of!”

“Yes!” he snapped back, and for a moment I was confused, not sure what part he was agreeing with, but it became clear a moment later. “I _know!_ Because if it _was_ nineteen forty-five you’d be arrested for wandering around in what you’re almost wearing!”

I glared, and even as I took a breath to let loose another sharp remark, I could see his nostrils flare a bit, and how wide his pupils were. A quick glance down at his shorts confirmed matters and I squeezed my eyes shut. “You’re mad because you’re horny.”

“Yesssss,” Bucky hissed. “Glad you caught on to that.”

“Then we’re not going to talk until you lose the boner,” I informed him. “Because _that’s_ what’s taking over your common sense right now.”

He stared at me with those big blue eyes, and I saw it, saw my words sink in. Bucky gave a harsh sigh and with ill-grace waded waist deep into the water, giving a little muffled yip as he did so. I slowly followed him, trying like hell not to laugh, especially when he turned after a few minutes and shot me a surly glance. “The things I _do_ for you,” he groused, but one corner of his mouth was curling up.

“The things you do because you know I’m right,” I corrected, and held his gaze. “Calmer now?”

He gave a reluctant nod, tossing the sides of his hair back, and sighed. “Yeah. God I don’t know if I’m ever going to fit into this future. Steve . . . Steve’s good at fitting in. He’s smart, learns fast. Me, I need time to figure things out. I’m not sure I . . . can.”

I moved closer and slipped an arm around him, glancing back to see if Harriet was watching. She was, and I waved with my free hand before looking back at Bucky. “You listen to me, _dorogoi_ —Steve Rogers has had two _years_ of therapy and re-education. He has a list—I’ve seen it—of things he knows he needs to catch up on. He also has dozens of people helping him get acclimated, so chew on that for a while. You’ve been on your own for six weeks and frankly I think you’ve done a pretty fucking good job of taking care of yourself! Time, lover, _time_ is what you need. Give yourself some credit for fuck’s sake!”

I had to stop because he was staring to nuzzle my neck; when I pulled away Bucky gave me a soulful look. “I _was_ listening.”

“With your ears, or your _khuy?_ ”

“Both,” he admitted, and drew in a breath. “Mel, I’m not good at this.”

“Which this?” I wanted to know. Now things had all the earmarks of a ‘being dumped’ conversation and my chest was getting tight.

“Having a girl. A steady girl,” Bucky admitted and his smirk was sort of sad. “I knew a lot of girls, and I had a lot of fun—“

“You had a lot of _sex,_ ” I corrected. “Yeah, I figured that part out from your mad skills in the bedroom.”

“Yes,” Bucky growled. “I did. And while it was fun, it wasn’t . . . important.”

I stared at him, not sure what to say. Some part of me knew better than to interrupt him, so I gave him an encouraging nod instead, and pulled us in a few steps so we wouldn’t be doused with a wave while talking.

“Listen, I mean it was fun and all, but with _you,_ it’s more. Shit, I don’t know how to _say_ it! It’s like being safe and happy and full all at the same time, and I never had that before and now that I do I don’t want to fuck it up, you know? I’m not smart, I have no idea what I’m even going to do for a living and I don’t want to _lose_ you, Melvin.”

Those big eyes!

Ah so that was it; a mix of horniness and fear. Those I could deal with, particularly since I could relate. I wrapped my arms around Bucky and dragged my lips along his stubbly jawline until I was close to his ear. _”I love you too. Let’s go back inside.”_

He hesitated, and murmured, _”Not pity.”_

_”Not pity,”_ I assured him. _”The future . . . the future can wait for a little while. Right now, it’s you and me.”_

So we waded in and back towards Harriet, picked up our room key and headed back to the Inn.

Making love in the warm afternoon near a beach is probably one of the best ways to do it, frankly. Since Bucky needed assurance and I was feeling bossy, I took the top, and got no complaints about that from him. We left our wet clothes near the door and managed to make it to the bed, kissing and nibbling and generally doing a naked waltz that had me giggling until we hit the mattress. At first I was worried about his bandage, but Doc Goldie had sealed it up tight and Bucky wasn’t about to let a little thing like a missing limb bother him at the moment.

Having him splayed under me left me feeling like a queen toying with a favorite consort, and I did my best to lord over him, kissing and touching everything I could reach as I straddled his waist. Behind me his _khuy_ kept nudging against my ass impatiently but I concentrated on his face, devouring that mouth of his time and time again until we were both breathlessly horny.

This did not take very long, and Bucky’s fingers were stroking along my breasts, gliding from one to the other, heat leaving trails against the goose bumps there. I shivered because it felt sooo good and told him so; he gave me that devastating smile of his in return. When he smiles like that—the soft, sweet dimpled one—I melt, I truly do. It’s just impossible to resist.

Our foreplay was short, simply because both of us were so aroused already that drawing anything out would only add to the frustration. I started to roll a condom on him, but Bucky reached down to assist me and it became a little more erotic as he used my hand to show me how he liked to be touched. Well that turned me on even more, and between my enthusiasm and his enjoyment we almost didn’t need the condom. Fortunately we both stopped just short of making a mess and grinned at each other like the horny idiots we were. 

_”You like this,”_ I taunted him. 

_”Fuck yes,”_ Bucky laughed. 

I did, and managed to guide him into me as I did so . . . ohhhh glorious! That first deep thrust is always wonderful especially because this was him and me and we knew each other and wanted each other and needed this, it was SO good. I gripped his hips with my knees and looked down at Bucky, savoring his puckered mouth and half-closed eyes, feeling again like a queen.

He drove himself up into me, his hand slithering around to grip my ass, and together we settled into a sweet syncopation for a while, rocking together, shivers of pleasure zinging through my nerves as each stroke put me closer to the edge. Bucky was pretty near too; I realized he was chewing his lower lip in an effort not to come too soon. Evil bitch that I was, I worked my tongue into the corner of his mouth just as I squeezed my inner muscles at the same time. That was enough, and Bucky’s fingers clawed my ass hard as he erupted, throbbing deep in me. I ground down and between the heat, pressure and wet froth, managed my own pretty searing climax as well.

Yeah, that was pretty damned good.

We sort of collapsed in a damp huddle on the sheets and I was ready to fall asleep when Bucky reached over and brushed my bangs from my forehead. He kissed it, then looked at me. “Hey.”

“Hey,” I murmured back sleepily. “That was fabulous by the way. You’re a very naughty senior citizen.”

“Ha- _ha,_ ” he shot back but one corner of his mouth curled up. “Here I am about to open up my heart to you and you remind me how old I am. Tell me again why I’m in love with you?”

“Because I feed you,” I reminded him, and sighed. “And probably because I’m the only woman you know right now.” That was one of my secret fears—that once this hunk got out in society he’d see exactly what he’d been missing out on for the last seventy years.

“You are the only woman who _matters,_ ” Bucky told me, his voice very soft. “You know _what_ I am, _who_ I am, and you still love me. That’s . . . pretty amazing in my book.”

I wrapped one leg over his hip and snuggled closer to him. “You saved me,” I reminded him. Those Hydra agents killed my uncle and would have killed me. You saved me and you didn’t have to, so don’t forget that.”

He gave a little noise and ran his face over my shoulder, silent for a moment, then sighed. “Melvin, what now? If this was my era, I’d propose and work like hell to find a job to support us, but I don’t think that’s going to fly with you. Everything I know how to do is out of date except how to handle weapons and kill people, and I’m not going to do those anymore.”

I was trying to sound soothing but his comment about proposing startled me, so I stroked his skin before I answered. “I wouldn’t say _everything’s_ out of date. And you could learn _new_ skills, you know.”

“That . . . might take a while,” Bucky murmured. “I’m not a brain, like Steve.”

“Two year lead,” I reminded him. “And anyway, _I_ can support us while you figure out what you want to do—that is, if you’re serious.”

I could see his dilemma as his traditional upbringing warred with his common sense, and I let him stew on my offer while I stroked and touched him. Eventually what I was doing distracted Bucky enough that began to reciprocate, and even one-handed, he had me writhing and muttering things that would have shocked a longshoreman. Laughing as he did it too, the fiend.

It was getting on towards twilight now, and I knew we needed to shower and rejoin the others but it felt so good to be here, and I still hadn’t gotten an answer from Bucky so we lingered. And then some strange voice calls through the suite door---

“So, if you two are finally done rounding third base-ski, I believe have an arm to deliver?”


	19. Chapter 19

I would just like to state for the record, if there is one, that Tony Stark is a very scary guy. Not like in a monster, or stalker maniac, but just in a super-intense “I _could_ be a mad scientist” way. He has this habit of crossing his arms and staring at you until you felt like his gaze had stripped off not only all your clothing but layers of your skin as well.

Not what I was expecting.

Still, he got along with Doc Goldie and Harriet, flirting with them the whole time he was unpacking massive cases of equipment. Bucky had retreated to a corner of the room and I sat next to him, making sure my thigh was up against his. Steve and Sam flanked us protectively, and I got the sense that Steve wasn’t too fond of Tony Stark.

And that was weird because generally Steve gets along with everyone.

But he had an arm. Correction, several arms, and for a bizarre moment I thought he looked like a salesman, pulling out limb after polished limb for perusal. An arms dealer, I snickered to myself. He set three of them out and made a little ‘tah dah!’ gesture to invite us over for a look at them.

“This first one covers the basics,” he began, pointing at a utilitarian sort of prosthetic. “Lifting, grabbing, pulling, hitting, pinching. Perfect for the elementary school moves so necessary in our modern life. You can flip people off, pick your nose, engage in personal activities in the bathroom without fear of being too rough with yourself unless you happen to _like_ that sort of thing . . .”

Nobody said anything and Tony looked around, sighing. “Tough crowd, okay, moving on—” He waved to the second one, which looked much more complicated than the first one. “This unit has touch sensors that can be calibrated to within with width of a hair. It has all the dexterity of the first with the same kinesthetic capacities as well as Adamantium reinforcements on all the joints and a built in wrist screen. A cell phone you never have to put down, in fact.”

I looked at Bucky, who looked . . . intrigued. Steve looked half-appalled, half distrustful. “Does the monitoring go both ways?” he asked, his voice a little harsh. For the first time, Tony looked a little discomfited.

“It could be calibrated that way, sure. Doesn’t have to be but it could.”

“Pass,” both Bucky and Steve said simultaneously as Sam shook his head. I knew we all understood how potentially dangerous that was.

“Fine, fine, I could take out the wrist screen and capacities out if you want, _or_. . .” He held up the third limb the way a fisherman holds up a prize catch, stretching it out between his upheld hands and smiling over the top of it. “You could have the best of both.”

I felt Bucky scoot to the edge of his seat, and Steve uncrossed his arms, looking a little more receptive. Once he saw those reactions, Tony lowered his hands and stared down at the limb he was holding. “The first one was pretty basic, and the second one had some refinements, but by the time I got started on this one, I was pretty sure it would fly. Your pal,” he looked at Sam when he said that, “the VA orthotics guy—Attah, had some input and I’ve signed over the basic designs to him. With a hefty grant from one of my foundations, he’s going to apply some of the tech for other limbs, so it’s been a productive two weeks.”

Bucky stood up and walked over to Tony. He ran his good hand over the polished metal molding and hefted it a little, then examined the fingertips. Tony spoke again, more softly.  
“We’ve also got a latex sheath for it too, that we can match to your skin tone if you’d like blend in, or avoid being spotted by Hydra.”

Nobody spoke, and when Bucky raised his head he looked at Tony and nodded. Then he shot me a glance. “This one.”

And that was sort of that.

\--oo00oo--

We planned to do the surgery on Tony’s yacht, the Y-Not a week later. It was going to take us that long to prep and I had to donate more blood and marrow while Bucky did all sorts of tests and diagnostics. I couldn’t believe there was a full medical suite on the ship but there was, along with several Jacuzzis, a full gym, a karaoke bar and a very cultured . . . voice that kept checking in with us about everything. Steve called him ‘Jarvis’ and asked him for reports on SHIELD and Hydra while Sam, Goldie, Harriet and I explored the ship.

It was the third morning onboard when I found the kitchen, I nearly drooled, and would have explored the place but the heavy-set chef there scowled at me so I ducked out again, nearly running into the strawberry blonde woman coming from the other direction. She saw my expression. “Miss . . . Zherdev, isn’t it? Are you all right?”

“Just admiring the kitchen,” I admitted. “From the doorway.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Estefan is a little . . . territorial about it. I’m Pepper Potts, Mr. Stark’s assistant,” she added.

I recognized her then; she’d been in the papers too, and I shook her hand lightly. “Oh yeah! They still talk about how you saved all those people at the Expo!”

She blushed. “Not me. I just . . . organized things.”

I nodded. “Still cool, though. I was hoping I could do some baking. Just to have something to do, for the moment.”

Miss Potts looked at me and I could see her thinking about all the activities on the yacht, all the diversions available and wondering about my request--- 

She stepped into the kitchen and squared her shoulders. “Estefan, Mr. Stark would like your best South Florida entrees tonight.”

“Tonight?” the heavyset man scowled, but she held up a hand to stop his protests.

“The helicopter is on standby to take you to Captain’s Tavern Market, and you may use the yacht account for anything you need. Whatever is fresh, along with complementary greens and a key lime pie from scratch, please.”

The man nodded, and I could tell from his expression he was already going through recipes in his head and trying to make a choice. “Very well Miss Potts. How many are expected for dinner?”

“At least eight,” she told him, “And there should be three different appetizers.”

He nodded again and headed off; when he was gone, Miss Potts looked over her shoulder at me and smiled. “Given the flight time to Miami and back that will keep him busy for most of the day, so please feel free to do whatever you like. I believe the assistant chef is Alberto and he’d be happy to help if you need him.”

“Thank you,” I burbled, feeling a little giddy. “Thank you SO much!”

She smiled. I nearly teared up, but Miss Potts looked up and spoke. “Jarvis, please alert Miss Zherdev when Estefan is returning; a half an hour leeway would be appreciated.”

Smart. So smart of her. I stood there in a happy daze as she stepped out, leaving me in that lovely, lovely kitchen. I got to work, feeling a little more centered once I was up to my elbows in dough and was so busy in fact, that I barely noticed people passing by the doorway until I heard a familiar voice nearly an hour later, and cocked my head. I hadn’t intended on listening in, but with the weird acoustics it was hard not to as Steve and Bucky talked.

“--New to me too,” Steve said. “It’s as if nobody does any drawing on paper anymore. It’s all digital, computerized and uploaded now. The first time I walked into an art supply store I had to go to the back before I found anything that looked familiar to me, so I know what you mean.”

“Yeah well it’s not like you’re going to be an artist anyway,” I heard Bucky respond. “You’re a soldier, Steve, and probably will be for life. You’ve got what SHIELD needs.”

“Muscles and the ability to follow orders? Not anymore,” Steve sighed. “I’ll do what it takes to defeat Hydra, but I need to know who I’m working for, and right now . . . that’s not exactly clear. There are only a handful of people I can trust, and the number keeps changing.”

“You trust Stark?” 

“I have to, but it’s not easy. Howard had his irritating moments but Tony . . . Tony not only thinks he’s God’s gift to this country but occasionally proves it, which makes him twice the pain in the ass,” Steve grumbled. “He’s brilliant and never lets anyone forget it.”

I heard Bucky laugh, and it was a good sound. Carefully I shifted the dough and divided it, rolling it out as quietly as I could.

“Seems to have done pretty good for himself though, and the arm looks like it might be what I need, but if I take it . . . does that make me his latest toy? See, because nice as that arm is, I’m not about to belong to anyone else ever again, Steve. Not Tony Stark, not SHIELD, nobody. And that’s a problem right there.”

“Tony’s not looking to get paid,” Steve told him, “He’ll want bragging rights. As for you I’m betting Coulson can quietly pull strings and make sure you get the benefits you’re entitled to. The accumulated amount is going to be enough to let you go to school, travel, hell, buy a farm somewhere if you wanted.”

They both laughed at that, and I grinned.

“Yeah right—born and raised in fucking _Brooklyn_ here, pal, where milk comes from a bottle and eggs come from the wagon on Tuesdays. Nah, not a farm. Besides, I don’t think Mel would want that either.”

“Probably not,” Steve agreed. “So she’s part of the plan?”

“Yeah, she is.”

“Good. About time.”

“Yeah,” Bucky replied in a voice that nearly made me cry, “She puts up with my crap and around her, I’m . . . maybe, a better person. I don’t know.”

“Good,” Steve repeated, and I heard him add, “tell her. Often. Don’t make the mistake I did in thinking there was going to be time for that down the road, okay?”

I heard a choking sound and couldn’t tell if it was me, or the two of them or maybe all of us. I sniffled and bent back to the dough, hiding my eyes from them when they stepped in a few moments later.

“I figured you’d find the kitchen sooner or later,” Bucky murmured to me. “Whatcha making?”

“Soft pretzels,” I told them. “One of the few baked goods I do better than Ed.”

Both of them looked pleased and hungry. Bucky glanced past me to the mixer and walked over to it, examining it closely. I shifted so he could, and he spoke to Steve. “See _this_ , I could take apart and rebuild. Gear-driven motor, no computer parts, just straight machining and electronics.”

“Good, it’s a start. But eventually you’re going to have to learn something about computer chips if you want to keep working with engines. It’s not a Flash Gordon world yet, Buck—even I can work a cell phone.” Steve thought better of it and added, “mostly.”

I looked at Bucky, who had a considering expression, and told him, “you know, you could take an aptitude test, find out how much you already know about engines and mechanics. It would be a place to start.”

“Maybe,” he replied, but something about his tone had me hopeful, so I shooed them both out and went back to rolling the pretzels, wondering if Tony Stark had a garage somewhere on this ship too.

\--oo00oo--

The operation took hours. I remember waiting around restlessly, not able to go too far away, but not being able to concentrate on a damned thing either. Harriet stayed with me, Steve, and Sam; Doc Goldie was an observer down in the surgical suite keeping an eye on the entire process. Doctor Streiten was head of the team, with a neuro-specialist who’d been cleared through about ten levels of security.

Finally though, Doc Goldie came and let us know that everything had gone well, and that Bucky was out of surgery now. I tried not to fret about not being able to see him right away, but the relief was so overwhelming that I barely made it back to my own bed before finally falling asleep. 

The next week went slowly. We monitored Bucky, waiting for any problems or rejection, but because of my donations and the neuro-cell grafting, his arm started to heal at an accelerated pace. Harriet told me it was partially the super soldier serum, but part of it was Bucky’s attitude too. “You and Steve, you’re helping him see a future for himself,” she stated. “Giving him something to live for.”

I wasn’t sure I wanted responsibility (or credit) for that, but if that’s what was helping him heal, I’d deal with it. In the meantime I read to him; The Sword in the Stone because he’d started it before he’d been drafted and never finished it. I’d never heard of it, but it turned out to be a pretty good story, all about King Arthur before he was king. It’s funny too, because while we read it, I realized there were some sort of familiar characters here. Bucky caught onto it too, and snorted when I called him ‘Sir Kay’.

“Yeah, well it fits. And there’s no denying Steve went from be a Wart to a king, that’s for sure.”

“Not without help,” I pointed out, “and a good right-hand man.”

Bucky held up the new arm and shot me one of those sweetly self-skeptical looks. “Looks like I qualify,” he murmured, and waggled the fingers. I reached over and interwove them with mine, bending to kiss him as well, and when I felt the ever-so-gentle squeeze in return, I teared up.


	20. Chapter 20

The stadium wasn’t big or full, but from the way both Steve and Sam were scanning the area you would have thought they were Secret Service checking for snipers. Harriet was on the verge of swatting the nearest one with her program, and it was only when Sam saw her scowl that he relaxed a little, looking sheepish.

“Old habits,” he offered. 

Harriet snorted. “It’s not that I disagree about the potential for danger, it’s just that both you and the Captain are a little noticeable when you do the double eagle.”

I hid my snicker and moved closer to Bucky, who was leafing through the program, studying the stats as if he was going to be tested on them. Since he was pre-occupied, I took a moment to look at his profile, noting that he looked . . . good. Not completely relaxed yet, but without the rigidity to his posture that made him more machine than man. 

Before we’d gotten here, I’d tied his hair back and bought him a Fort Myers Miracle ball cap (he’d spent nearly twenty minutes rolling the brim before wearing it) along with a three quarter sleeve Harley Davidson tee-shirt (that he approved of, whole-heartedly) and cargo shorts. He wasn’t as sold on the running shoes until he tried them on.

“Where have _these_ been all my life?” he muttered, hopping from one foot to the other. “Seventy years in military boots and only _now_ I can dance.”

Now he was lolling in his seat, pursing his lips, focused on the lineup.

“So all those mean something to you?” I teased, looking at the columns and rows of numbers that had him so fascinated. He glanced up and smiled.

“They do. They tell me their starting pitcher is going to need help and their batting lineup will start weak and end up strong. Also, that the other team won’t make the eighth inning easy for them. You _know_ how baseball is played, right?”

“I know the basics,” I assured him. “No touchdowns or goals in this game, and nobody makes a basket or a hole in one.”

Next to me, Sam snorted, and even Steve was grinning. Bucky rolled his eyes. “It’s not nice to make fun of a man’s religion you know.”

“And here I thought you were an acolyte at the temple of the corn dog,” I shot back, and he brightened up.

“Oh yeah, dogssss,” he murmured, and looked around at the vendors who were already beginning to wander around.

I looked at Harriet, who had her purse in hand, and warned her. “Keep track and I’ll reimburse you; this tab could get ugly.”

The announcer came on, calling out the roster as the teams came out on the field, trotting through the dust to wave at us in the stands. The afternoon was a little overcast, but the air was muggy, and I could smell a hint of rain mingled with popcorn and hot dogs. Around us, the crowd seemed to be a nice mix of humanity ranging from toddlers to grandparents. I noted that the visitor’s side of the stadium was hardly a quarter full while ours was nearly half-way. Said a lot about how Fort Myers felt about their home team I guess.

And then the moment when the announcer had us stand for the _Star-Spangled Banner_. Harriet was up in a second, along with Steve and Sam, and I got to my feet, feeling Bucky slowly rise next to me. The recording was crackly over the loudspeakers, but it didn’t make any difference to the men with me. I noticed Steve, serious and proud with his cap over his heart, softly mouthing the words, and on the other side of me, Sam blinking, his expression solemn. Beautiful moment, really, and even more so when I felt Bucky’s latex-covered hand slip into mine holding it for the entire anthem.

He was looking down, but before the end of the anthem, he raised his head enough for me to see the wet streaks down his cheeks.

When the umpire called, “play ball!” we were all still standing, a little dazed I think, and it took a moment for us to settle back into our seats. I know I was moved by it, this simple moment of pure patriotic happiness. This . . . _this_ was what mattered in life, this sweet freedom to spend an afternoon watching a ball game. Steve was grinning now, sprawling in his seat next to Harriet and I reached over to wipe Bucky’s face. He let me for a moment, then pulled back a little and let himself manage a wry grin.

“Still in there,” Bucky confessed in a low voice. “Unbelievable, huh?”

“Nah,” I assured him. “You might have been hijacked for a while, but you’re still an American waaay down inside.”

We watched the game, and it only took about fifteen minutes before I noticed both Steve and Bucky twitching. Sam wasn’t really into the game; he was more into sunbathing and relaxing; Harriet had her crocheting out and had only half her attention on the action down on the field, but the other two were laser focused on the batting.

“What’s wrong?” I finally asked Bucky, who scowled.  
“I told you the pitcher would be a wash . . . Jesus. HEY! WE SHOULD ARRANGE A FUNERAL FOR YOUR DEAD ARM, JONES!” Bucky bellowed. “THE ONLY MIRACLE HERE IS THE CATCHER!”

People around us erupted into laughter and I cringed, but Harriet was giggling. Bucky tugged his cap down a little lower as down on the field the pitcher shot a dirty look up towards where we were. Sam was trying not to smirk, but I could feel his shoulders shaking a bit. Other folks threw out a few catcalls, and I guess it must have worked because things seemed to tighten up on the field. 

Steve shot a look over towards us and grinned. “First round of corn dogs he walks the batter.”

“Fffft, that’s a sucker bet, pal. Better bet is whether Mejia there at second keeps an eye on the runner,” Bucky shot back. “I can smell a steal coming up.”

“You’re on,” Steve murmured, turning back to the action.   
And so it went. Bucky threw out a few more catcalls—I think my favorite was _‘You couldn’t knock the ice off a windshield, Junior!_ ’—and while it looked like Steve wanted to make a few choice comments himself he held back, smirking. I guess he didn’t want us to be too conspicuous. I noticed that our team was scoring pretty well but that the visitors were doing better, and in the course of five innings we managed to make friends with the corn dog vendor, who muttered something about a volume discount. The sun slid lower and all of a sudden everyone got up.

“Is it over?”

“Seventh inning stretch,” Bucky told me, as if this was something I was expected to know. Over the loudspeaker a tinny recording of _‘Take Me Out to the Ball Game’_ came on and I headed for the bathroom, feeling glad that the day—and the game—were going so well.

By the time I got out again, it had started to cloud over and the threat of rain was a lot stronger. The wind had picked up a bit, and I was glad to get back up against Bucky, in the curve of his arm as the game started up again. He seemed resigned that the Miracle was going to lose, but a heck of a lot more animated than he’d been in a long time and I know I wasn’t the only one to notice. 

Sam shot me an amused glance. “So, you DO know that there’s going to be a lot more baseball in your future, right?”

“Yeah,” I sighed. “Guess I’m going to have to learn about it.”

“Might help,” he chuckled. “Me, it’s been ages. Football’s more my sport, but just getting outside’s a good deal.”

Something happened on the field just then; I didn’t see it, but Bucky shot up to his feet along with nearly everyone on our side of the bleachers as the roar went up. I looked to see someone crash into someone else at home plate, and then it seemed everyone was running towards some major fight there. People were hooting and the announcer was saying something about a close run.

“Oh yeah,” Steve murmured and flashed a grin our way. “ _That_ cleared the dugouts!”

“They’re gonna call him out,” Harriet predicted, tucking away her crocheting. “You mark my words, o-u-t.”

Apparently they did, and it went against the visitors, leaving the Miracle ahead by a run for the win. While people got up and began to mill around I breathed a sigh, feeling pretty damned good.

Then the rain started. Not just a few sprinkles here and there, oh no. This was Florida rain, which I have learned is either unforgiving clingy mist that keeps you miserable, or full force shower downpour which instantly drenches you. I yelped and we scooted along the cement walkway down the stairs, holding the programs over our heads and trying not to slip.

“Be careful,” Steve was telling Harriet, bracing a hand against her shoulder as she struggled down the steps. “Hang onto me.” People were pushing around us, filling the exits and making it hard to stay together. I tried to keep a hand on Bucky but a couple of teenagers winnowed past and separated us, so I focused on his baseball cap, trying to keep it in sight. I thought it would be colder but no, the rain just made everything clammy and I was wondering how long it would take us to get back to the van when someone grabbed my shoulders and spun me off into a side hallway. 

I gave a yelp, but whoever it was wrapped a hand around my mouth, taking care not to press against my teeth. _”_


	21. Chapter 21

I didn’t recognize the voice but the Russian sent fresh terror through me and I froze as a thousand panicked thoughts rattled through my brain like a handful of beads in a glass jar: _God, Bucky! Hydra oh shit, no, not here, are they always going to be out there maybe I can run, fight, Bucky, Bucky!_

My back hurt when I felt the hard poke of a gun muzzle against it, and I flinched. Whoever it was, he was male and smelled sweaty. He herded me deeper down the hall, and through an open door to a dim room.

“Take your phone out and give it to me. No heroics.”

I fished my cell phone out and tried to look around; a janitor’s closet of some sort since I could see cleaning equipment on the walls and plastic jugs on the shelves. I tried to turn my head but my captor gave me a hard shove towards the wall and pushed the gun harder into my back, pinning me there, damn it.

I sighed. Part of me had been expecting something like this; my Russian nature was always suspicious when things were going too well. Ever since our arrival in Florida I’d been mentally holding my breath, waiting for something bad to happen, and now that it was, I was sort of . . . relieved. That didn’t mean I wasn’t scared to death and worried for the people I’d come to love, it just meant . . . I dunno, that my cynical genes were still in working mode I guess. That my guard really did need to be up.

Behind me I heard whoever it was give a pleased sort of grunt before they spoke up again, and I realized they must have had a Bluetooth on. “Yes, I have her. Do you see them?”

A pause, then, “Good. We have enough around us to prevent any fighting. It’s a black android.”

My phone? I tried to figure what that was all about, and it dawned on me a moment later—bait. Bucky, Steve, Harriet—they all knew what my phone looked like. I tried to look over my shoulder at whoever it was and saw a nondescript guy in a Hawaiian shirt and shorts, looking perfectly ordinary . . . except for the gun of course. And heck, this was Florida, so maybe even the gun was commonplace around here.

I took a breath, thinking hard. I hadn’t been to the dojo in months, but I knew I could probably throw and pin this guy if I could get him to move the gun and grab me. Judo is primarily about defense, and that meant I had to get him to make a move on me; unfortunately a weapon increased the danger. But I was pissed now, that gut-deep sort of anger that combined all my ongoing fear and frustration into a core of hate inside.

“Fuck Hydra,” I hissed loudly, hoping whoever he was talking to would hear it. 

That was enough to do it; my captor moved to try and clock me in the side of the head with the gun. I reached over my shoulder, grabbed his sleeve and threw myself back against him, bracing for the fall. He wasn’t expecting resistance and we went down with a thud onto the concrete floor, jarring us both. I had adrenaline on my side though, and rolled to my feet before my attacker could grab me. One good stomp on his wrist and he let go of the gun.  
 _”You motherfucking son of a rat’s asshole!”_ I raged at him, and dropped myself into an ude-garami on the bastard. That’s an armlock, by the way, with both of my legs across his body—one over the chest, the other over his neck—and my hands twisting his arm up between them, locking his elbow into a really really uncomfortable position.

“Fuuuuck!” he screamed, and it echoed in the room. “Goddamn it!”

I settled in, prepared to hang onto him for a while, feeling proud that my parents’ investment in Putin’s favorite sport had paid off . . . so far.

“You’re _dead,_ bitch, you hear me?!” my captor shouted. “I’m going to arrgggggh!” His threat shifted into a muffled scream as I twisted his arm a bit and pressed the back of my knee against his windpipe.

“You’re going to lie here like a butt-hurt prison bitch,” I informed him, wanting so much to keep torqueing his arm. “Keep yelling and you’ll be in a hospital bed for months, asswipe. You Hydra shits really need to stop chasing us.”

I could hear voices over his telephone, which was somewhere off in a corner, and other voices starting to get louder from down the hall. I hoped to hell they were Steve and Bucky; if they were Hydra I was probably screwed. “Why, by the way? You _know_ he’s never going to let himself be recaptured, right?”

“We don’t--” the asswipe began, and coughed a little.

I bared my teeth. “Keep talking, or I can start biting too. Wouldn’t take much to chomp a pinkie off.”

“We don’t want _him!_ ” the asswipe spluttered. “Just the arm!”

I should have figured, but it made sense. They’d want their tech back, especially now that they knew the self-destruct in it had failed. 

Footsteps came down the hall. Soft ones. I looked up, making sure my grip was secure, and caught sight of Bucky in the doorway, his gaze taking in everything. One corner of his mouth quirked up—just a quick, tiny flick—and then he advanced, squatting by the asswipe and sliding a grip around the guy’s other arm.

“Let him go, Melvin. He’s mine.”

“No killing,” I groused, reluctant to let go now. “You can’t kill him, dorogoi.”

“I can . . . and I can do it very slowly, and very painfully,” Bucky growled in that light, dangerous way of his. More people crowded up in the doorway; Steve and Sam, both looking grim as hell. The asswipe whimpered and I realized he’d just wet himself. I unlocked myself from him in a hurry and picked up his cell phone.

“Bucky,” Steve warned. “Mel’s okay. No need to do something we’ll all regret.”

“I won’t regret it at all . . .” He hauled the asswipe up and held him so he was on his tiptoes. “. . . but how do _you_ want to play this, Steve?”

I stepped up and held out the phone; Steve took it and started talking while I stood quietly and let myself relax. That was a mistake because I started trembling instead as the adrenaline rushed out of me. That was the problem with the stuff—when it drained away you were left feeling weak and stupid.

Sam came over and put an arm around me. Even though we were both still damp from the rain it helped; a lot.

“Judo, huh?” he whispered.

“Brown belt,” I replied. “Never really used it outside a dojo before.”

“First time for everything,” Sam murmured. 

More people showed up, but Sam and I made a barrier at the door and Harriet held back what looked like a squadron of people behind her.

Steve spoke again and this time I caught his words. “ . . . Not your technology anymore. The outdated weaponry you had him outfitted with is now in pieces with Stark’s engineers.”

I caught my breath, wondering what the hell Steve was doing. Was he supposed to be saying this? I knew Bucky wanted full disclosure, but that seemed a bit much to be telling Hydra agents, especially over a phone.

Bucky dragged the asswipe over and shook him lightly. “I’m not going to kill you,” he announced loudly. “I’m _done_ with that shit. You hear that?” Bucky yelled towards the phone in Steve’s hand. _”I’m not your puppet, your tin soldier, your bullet or bayonet any longer. SHIELD knows **everything** I ever knew about you, so my advice is to start stuffing those Hydra heads up your asses if you don’t want them cut off.”_

I laughed. It was a nervous giggle; the sort you make when something that isn’t really funny suddenly seems to be the most hilarious thing you’ve ever heard. Sam shot me a concerned look but I shook my head; now wasn’t the time to explain it, even if I could.

Bucky threw the guy down and glared at him; the asswipe was smart enough not to get up. Steve held out the phone.

“Leave. Me. alone,” Bucky hissed, talking to both the agent on the floor and those on the other end of the line. “I have nothing you want anymore and seventy-five years of hate and training that will be coming after YOU if you persist in this idiocy. From now on, consider me as dead as Pierce.”

He reached out and crushed the phone, letting little bits of glass and plastic drop to the floor. Nobody moved for a moment, and then Bucky turned to me. I slipped out from under Sam’s arm and wrapped myself around Bucky, suddenly on the verge of tears and fighting them hard. 

Harriet, Steve and Sam were picking up the asswipe and talking to the security people but I wasn’t paying attention to any of that. Instead, I kept my face against Bucky’s collarbone and let him hold me a while, because that was what we both sort of needed right then. 

“Will they stop?” I asked. Stupid question because Bucky didn’t know, and the thought that I’d have to spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder for attempts on our lives had me on the verge of a panic attack.

“Yeah,” Bucky murmured against my hairline. “They will. They don’t have the manpower or morale to keep sending agents on suicide missions."

I snuffled a little at that, and felt him chuckle a bit. “Hey, Mel, look at me,” Bucky asked, and I tipped my face up.

He looked at me. “So . . . what happened?”

I told him, and then had to repeat it to Harriet and Steve later when we’d gotten out of the ball park and back to the motel. Mr. Heyward had built a bonfire on the beach for us and we sat around it in lawn chairs in the damp twilight, drinking beer. Only Sam was roasting marshmallows but he kept passing S’mores to all of us while we talked, and they were perfect.

“So whether or not they’re going to give up on you remains to be seen,” Harriet grumbled. “Stark’s technology is a helluva lot better than theirs, but they might be after you for more than that.”

“They won’t be back,” Bucky predicted quietly. “Hydra is going to slink back into their holes and regroup. They’re going to assess what they’ve got and concentrate on re-building. No risks for the next three years at least, and by then they’ll either have the Serum or they’ll go another route for world domination. Maybe robots or mind-control rays or something.”

“Zola was playing the long game,” Steve grumbled. “I wouldn’t put it past him to keep trying.”

“Maybe, but I was _Pierce’s_ tool,” Bucky countered. “And an old one at that. You can upgrade only so far; eventually you need a new weapon.”

“So what now?” Sam asked, and we all looked at him. He skewered another marshmallow and waved it over the flame. “My two cents worth is that if they’re going to try and keep tabs on you, make it hard for them to do that. Stay on the move.”

“Like how, a Winnebago?” Harriet snorted.

“What’s a Winnebago?” Bucky wanted to know, and I made the mistake of showing him one on my cell phone. He stared at it intently before murmuring, “Sort of like a cross between a bus and an Airstream but blockier.”

“Airstreams are still around,” I told him. There had been plenty of those particular RVs up around the lake year after year, so I knew what I was talking about.

“Where would you _go_ in one of those land yachts?” Harriet wanted to know, and I laughed.

“Iowa. We’d at go to Iowa at the very least.” At Bucky’s curious look I added, “It’s the corn dog capital of the world.”

_“Sold,”_ Bucky announced and even Steve laughed.

“Buck, you can’t be serious . . . you’ve lived in the city all your life!”

“Not all of it,” came the flat reply. For a moment nobody said anything, and then Sam spoke up in that easy, quiet way of his.

“Might not be a bad idea. Couple of weeks or months on the road, taking your time, keeping your route to yourself . . . Lord knows you could probably buy an RV cheap in this state and outfit it yourself.”

“Most of them are pretty comfortable,” Harriet admitted. “And you’d blend in on the road.”

I felt Bucky look at me, felt the question in his gaze and I sighed a little. “The _only_ way you could make it worth _my_ while is if you get one with a decent kitchen. I didn’t become a chef to do my cooking over some rinky two-flame unit!”

He looked at Steve, and slowly grinned. “I could see all forty-eight states before _you_ do.”

“There are fifty now, Bucky.”

“Whatever. And I’d start at Ebbits Field—“

“—Ebbits is gone. So are the Dodgers. They’re in Los Angeles,” Steve told him. Bucky shot him a disbelieving glance and I tried not to laugh.

“You should start at Cooperstown,” Harriet broke in firmly. “The baseball hall of fame is still where it was. After that, you can work your way around to whatever you want to see, sweetie. The Liberty Bell, Lincoln’s birthplace, Bourbon Street, the Grand Canyon . . .”

“The Henry Ford Museum,” Steve offered up quietly. “The Brickyard at Indianapolis.”

Bucky’s grin flashed out, bright in the firelight. “Only if you meet us there, pal. You too,” he added to Sam. 

“Hey, what am _I,_ chopped liver?” Harriet complained, but she was grinning. 

Later, after everyone else left us by the fireside, Bucky moved closer and draped his new arm around me. I liked the warm weight of it, and snuggled closer to him, sighing.

“So . . . think you could do the cross-country thing with me?” Bucky mumbled into my hair.

“I might be able to . . . with stipulations,” I replied just as softly. The moon was out now, and I loved the way it reflected on the ocean in front of us.

“Stip away,” Bucky told me. “I know the kitchen’s the main one, right?”

“The kitchen’s one,” I conceded, “But I guess what I really have to ask is . . . why _me_? Steve would go with you in a heartbeat, you know. The two of you would have a blast out there.”

“Melvin, this might come as a shock to you, but I’m _not_ in love with Steve Rogers,” Bucky snorted. “He’s a great guy, my best friend for years I’m just remembering and one of America’s great heroes but he’s _not_ the one I want to sleep with, and plan with, and get on with my life with. He’s sure as hell not the one I’m proposing to.”

I snorted and pulled my head from his shoulder to meet Bucky’s gaze. “Proposing?”

“Yeah,” he nodded. “I don’t have a ring for you—yet—but I know how I feel about you and I’m hoping . . . hoping you feel the same way about me.” 

I smiled, feeling all sorts of emotions churning inside of me. Most of them were good, but I won’t lie; there was a little panic in the mix too. _“You prick, you know I do!”_ In English I added, “but there’s a lot we still need to talk about. Kids for instance. Are you dead set on having any?”

He hesitated and that gave me the confidence to blurt, “because me, I’m not sure I _want_ kids, dorogoi. Certainly not while travelling around in an RV, but also because . . . you and me-- our genetics . . .”

Bucky nodded, his gaze locked with mine. “Yeah. I don’t know about possibly passing on what I’ve got, what’s been altered by Zola and the rest of ‘em. Kids are great, but . . .”

“Not now,” I nodded, feeling relieved. “Yeah. Okay, that’s good.”

He nodded again, and I felt his shoulder relax. “Agreed. Ah, anything else?”

“Parity.”

Bucky gave me a blank look; I smiled. “Equal say—at least, my fair opinions, suggestions and point of view. I’ve been looking out for myself for a while and I’m not going to take a back seat if we’re a couple.”

“You just whipped a Hydra agent with your bare hands, AND you handle huge knives for a living,” he teased, “somehow I don’t think equality’s going to be a _problem_ for us.”

I grinned, feeling better than I had in a hell of a long time. I nuzzled my way up to his mouth and kissed Bucky, enjoying the taste of beer and s’mores there. We kept kissing for a while, warm and comfortable together.


	22. Chapter 22

Epilog

So we hit the road. Sort of that is—it did take us half a year to get started. We spent time trying to find an RV we could agree on, but that was good since it also gave us time to let Bucky’s arm heal and for me to deal with my own personal stuff, which had been piling up.

SHIELD set up a new identity for me—Melissa Zubov—along with a new social security number and driver’s license. I took the check for the Brooklyn property as well, and set up an account with one of the banking subsidiaries run by Tony Stark. SHIELD also gave Bucky updates on all his pertinent information and access to the assets he was due, which as Steve mentioned were enough to be comfortable. 

So money-wise, things were good. Doc Goldie insisted we get some counseling, which ended up being really helpful too—she and Sam found a good one with the VA, and we went for sessions separately and together for about five months. Bucky and I got a _lot_ off of our chests, and I’m happy to say that through a few heavy-duty sessions we got even closer. We had a lot in common, actually, and that made it easier to support each other.

Steve, Sam, and Harriet were there for us too, and that was huge. With the way things were going for SHIELD and the country I never knew when they’d be off on missions or field work, but they’d show up again for a week or so, making it a point to _not_ talk shop. I cooked for everybody—I’d picked up a lot of the local recipes and was itching to expand my repertoire by the time October rolled around. Florida was nice, but I missed falling leaves and cold weather.

So a few weeks before Halloween, we packed up the RV, hitched it to the truck and headed north.

The RV by the way was a huge thing, former pimped out ride for some country singer I’d never heard of. I haggled to get a four-burner stove in it, and Bucky insisted on a walk-in tub, telling me that shower stalls gave him claustrophobic flashbacks. We called our trailer the Moby-mobile since it was pretty much a white whale. I wanted to call the truck Ahab, but Bucky said that was going too far and vetoed it, the spoilsport.

We did Cooperstown first, which wasn’t really all that far from Great Sacandaga, actually. Bucky and I talked it over and decided not to revisit the cabin just yet; Harriet assured us it was being taken care of, but neither of us was ready to go back. It was a kick to see him get all hyped up about the Baseball Hall of Fame though, and I heard a lot of stories as we wandered through the place.

Afterwards we had a long planning session, laying out a route that headed west. Harriet gave us several contacts from the Aegis list so we’d have safe people we could stay with or visit for a while. I suspect it was her way of making sure we kept in touch, and it felt good knowing there were folks along the route we could count on, no questions asked.

So that’s how it went, from Indianapolis to Chicago (Bucky felt obliged to see where the Cubs played) and through Milwaukee. Yes, we went to see Schlitz Park, and drank a few bottles there, both of us a little intimidated by the busy city complex that the brewery had become. What I loved, though, was that he didn’t mourn over the past too much. Bucky seemed a bit better at accepting change than Steve did, and I think it was because he’d had glimpses of the world over the years. In any case, he picked up skills pretty easily, and mastered stuff like the cell phone and laptops without too much trouble. 

On the long stretches, I’d sit in the truck with him and read aloud to him, something Steve used to do as well, Bucky told me. We started with a few hard-boiled detective thrillers, but moved onto historical fiction when I found a copy of _I, Claudius_ at a used bookstore. I also read him two of the James Bond novels before we both decided they were out of date, and moved onto The Black Cauldron series, which we both loved.

Bucky was a great driver, too. I thought he’d have trouble dealing with highways and such but he surprised me by having a terrific sense of direction and a pretty calm attitude behind the wheel. He insisted I learn to handle both the truck alone and the truck when it had the trailer hitched to it, pointing out that I might need to do the driving at some point in the future, and I discovered Bucky was also a pretty patient teacher . . . mostly. He did tease me about habit of spiking over the speed limit—something I don’t deny by the way. 

And the, um, loving was good too. Between the therapy and the companionship, Bucky and I had found our strength. We liked being together, not just the talking and hanging out, but also the lovemaking. Sometimes we got crazy and loud, and sometimes it was so slow and tender that I cried. Just . . . amazing stuff.

\--oo00oo--

Anyway, after Wisconsin, and the first snow, we both decided we liked warmer weather a lot more so we headed south again, gradually making our way towards Louisiana. We stayed with the Schmidts in Missouri for a few weeks, and Harry Alois just north of Liberty, Mississippi, and each time Bucky seemed to relax a little bit more. He helped the Schmidts with their broken tractor, and when Harry Alois offered him a chance to work for a few days in the local garage Bucky snapped it up. He came home smelling like old rubber and grease, but grinning too, and it did my heart good to know the man was having a great time. 

We were there nearly a month, and it’s where we got Stanley Poreda.

Stanley had been locked in the truck of a car abandoned on the side of the road near a levee, and Harry had been asked by the local police to tow it in. Nobody knew there was anything in the truck, but once the car was in the shop, Bucky heard noises—little pitiful noises he told me—so he pried it open. Without a crowbar I might add, because the arm Stark had fitted him with was plenty powerful for things like that. Anyway, he lifted the truck lid and there, tangled up in a mess of stolen fishing gear and related electronics was a bleeding little puppy.

Bucky told me later that he managed to untangle him from the hooks and lures, which was tough because apparently the little guy was so excited to be rescued that he wanted to wiggle and lick Bucky’s hands the whole time. I got a call about an hour later, and I remember the exact wording to this day. “Mel, doll, I need your help with a baby here.”

Yeah, that got me out of the kitchen in a hurry. Not because I was that crazy about babies, but there was something in Bucky’s tone that let me know this was pretty damned important.

And it was. The puppy was bleeding in trickles from a lot of little nicks, but one in particular between the toe pads of his left front foot looked like it would need stitches. Harry directed us to the nearest vet’s office, and I held onto the dog while Bucky sped us there, neatly slipping through yellow lights in a way that had me gasping a bit. We made it in record time though, to LeBeau’s clinic, and they took us right away.

All of us crowding into the examination room was sort of funny since young Doctor LeBeau was on the portly side, but the puppy was eating it up, wagging his stubby tail and trying to lick all of us at the same time. Bucky kept his hands around the little guy’s shoulders, talking in a soothing tone. “Hey, hey pal, gotta keep still, okay? Need to get you taken care of.”

Young Doc LeBeau—his father was also part of the practice and was known as Senior Doc, apparently—was really gentle, and looked over the puppy carefully, murmuring to himself. “Ahh, okay. Male boxer, fawn, looks to be about eleven weeks old. What happened to him?”

Bucky explained about how he’d found the dog, and while he did that, Young Doc LeBeau sealed up the biggest cut and wrapped puppy’s foot in gauze and tape, then went on to dab antiseptic on the other little cuts. The puppy whimpered a bit, and did NOT like his cone collar at all, not that I blamed him. He gave us all that ‘Why are you so mean to me when all I want to do is _love_ you?’ look and that pretty much did it for me.

“Bucky—“ was all I got out; he shot me a glance and nodded in complete agreement, and so that’s how we got a dog.

Young Doc LeBeau told us our puppy was probably a runt, given his small size, and because of the situation in which we’d found him, probably thrown in as a sweetener for some fencing deal involving the fishing equipment.

“It happens,” he sighed. “Dogs, sometimes guns or bows and arrows. Lotta folks around here are into huntin’ and fishin’ and a little extra to get a better price on stolen goods greases the way. Not a nice thing at all, but it happens. Shame too, because he’s a good-lookin’ pup under all those cuts.”

“We’ll . . . take care of him,” Bucky said gruffly, and picked up the dog, who definitely liked that. Young Doc LeBeau smiled and directed us out to the receptionist, who typed up a bill, scheduled us for puppy shots, and handed over a huge bag of puppy chow (“Free sample!”) along with a puppy care handbook, a few chew toys and a supply of bandages.

The three of us made it back to Harry’s house in time to meet the policeman investigating the car. He looked the car over, took a few notes, and patted the puppy before sighing. “Looks like a vehicle we had reported stolen day before yesterday; near as we can figure, it was left on the side of the road and was supposed to be picked up by the other party in the transaction. All I can surmise is that the second party was either delayed or maybe didn’t get the location right. We’ll confiscate the vehicle and goods, but as for the dog . . . it might be a few days until we can get him to the pound.”

“He’s not going to the pound!” I blurted. “He’s staying with us. He _needs_ us.”

Bucky cleared his throat. “She’s got a point. Little guy like this, already hurt . . . he wouldn’t do well in a pound. We’ll take him.”

The officer looked both relieved and amused. “Good. I’d take him myself but I’ve already got two cats, a bloodhound and a flock of chickens at home. My wife’s told me I can’t bring anything else in from the job.”

Harry vouched for us, and that was that. Bucky and I had a dog.

\--oo00oo--

It took us a while to find the right name, and in that time, I learned that a lot of what I thought I knew about dogs was _wrong._ The puppy book was a Godsend, really, and I kept going back to it as I tried to figure out how to potty-train our little friend. Also, I wanted to know why he felt it was necessary to chew anything left on the floor, why he was so thrilled to see us EVERY TIME we came back from somewhere, and why burying his face in Bucky’s crotch seemed to be a fun activity.

That last one kind of discomfited Bucky, too. “Yes, it’s my package; you’ve sniffed it before,” he groused to the puppy. “I’m still the alpha male, okay?”

And puppy wagged his stubby tail madly at that, the doof.

We finally decided to name him after a boxer Bucky’d seen as a kid. Not a dog boxer but a real person. Stanley Poreda, heavyweight boxer from Jersey City. Naturally we shortened it to just ‘Stanley’ which seemed to suit our little guy just fine. He healed up in time for us to head further south, so after an affectionate goodbye to Harry Alois, and promises to keep in touch with Young Doc LeBeau, we went down to New Orleans.

Stanley did pretty good travelling, too. We set him up with his own crate, which doubled as an end-table in Moby, and he preferred to snooze while we drove. Each time we stopped, though, it was time for A WALK! Usually I let Bucky handle that since he and Stanley could jog a few miles without too much trouble.

We liked New Orleans in the winter. It wasn’t crowded, and we went to Emeril’s and Fermez la Bouche, and The Red Butcher for fancy dinners, mostly so I could check out their menus. Bucky sulked because all three of them had jacket requirements but he didn’t seem to mind me in a dress, and certainly liked me out of it later on, heh. The whole time we were there, Bucky used terrible French to seduce me, and ate beignets off my stomach.  
Do you know how hard it is to get powdered sugar off the sheets, even with help from a boxer puppy?

Anyway, we spent our last overcast afternoon walking around in New Orleans City Park. They didn’t allow dogs, so we left Stanley in the trailer with a huge rawhide chew to keep him busy. We wandered around, taking photos, and on a whim Bucky steered us towards a section called Storyland. If you’ve never seen it, it’s this section of the park filled with fairy tale statues and climb-ons for kids. Sort of hokey and sweet at the same time and because of the damp weather, mostly deserted. We took selfies with the three pigs to send to Harriet, and were about to call it a day when Bucky took my hand and pulled me towards the Cinderella pumpkin carriage.

“Just what I was looking for,” he told me. “Come on.”

“Really?” I rolled my eyes. “It’s probably got _gum_ on the seats, you know.”

But he clambered into it and I had to follow, feeling silly for doing it because the thing was painted fiberglass and sort of snug for two adults. When I got in, Bucky laughed, mostly because he was practically doubled over in it.

“Not nearly as comfy as the truck, dude. We’d have to cut a moon roof for you to drive this,” I pointed out.

“Shhh,” he replied, and fished in his hoodie pocket. 

I started to cry when I saw the little box because . . . well because even though we’d talked about it, this was real and it was happening in a silly, romantic fairy tale carriage and everything. We Russians, we’re _really_ sentimental under all the no-nonsense attitudes we wear, and you can’t tell me that James Buchanan Barnes didn’t know me well enough to pull this on me here.

“ _Melora Ivana Christiana Zherdev,_ ” he whispered softly. “ _You’re the woman I want for always in my life. Please marry me._ ”

“Da,” I sniffled. “Da, Da!” I threw my arms around him and of course that knocked the box out of his hand so we spent the next few minutes fishing around for it on the rubber non-skid mat on the bottom of the carriage, trying not to bump heads and laughing a little as well.

We climbed out, and that’s when we realized we had an audience. Two little girls were staring at us with that slightly suspicious look kids get when they find grownups doing goofy things. I held out the box to explain. “Uh, he proposed to me.”

The taller girl looked at the box while the smaller girl looked at Bucky.

“No he didn’t. He needs to be on a knee to do that,” the younger girl announced. “Princes always kneel down for marriaging.”

Her sister nodded emphatically. “Yeah. That’s the rules.”

Bucky plucked the box out of my hand and knelt down, looking over at the girls. “Like this, right?”

They studied him critically, nodded, and then the taller one steered me in front of him and made me hold out my hand. Bucky took it and looked up at me, trying to keep a straight face. I had a lot of trouble with that myself.

“ _Now_ it’s right,” the younger girl told us. “He can look at you all goo-goozy eyes and you can say, ‘Oh prince, yes, yes I will marry only you!’”

I bit my lips. Bucky turned a soulful gaze up at me, and murmured, _“I believe you have a line here?”_

“Seriously?” I murmured back, snorting a giggle. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the two girls starting to glare, so I added, more loudly, “Yes, yes I will marry only you, my prince!”

With flair, Bucky flipped the box lid open, pulled the ring out and slid it on my finger, where it sparkled. The girls broke into applause.

I broke into tears.

The ring was white gold, Alexandrite, with little diamonds on either side; absolutely gorgeous. I put my arms around Bucky and kissed him while the girls clapped again and danced around us. I kept kissing him, and gradually the two girls drifted away to climb on Cinderella’s carriage, leaving us to our bliss.

\--oo00oo--

I could tell you all about the wedding of course; how Ed called dibs on making our cake, and how Stanley made friends with a llama and why Sam walked me down the aisle, but my friends . . . that’s a whole ‘nother story.

end


End file.
